Watching the Meme-lympics

I’m getting my sports in small doses this time.

I’m not watching the Olympics this year. Not sure why. I’m not boycotting it. I’m not protesting anything. I’m still chanting USA, USA in my head when I see mention of Americans competing or winning. It’s just … for some reason, this time around, I don’t feel compelled to glue my eyeballs to the television for every suspenseful moment.

I’ve done that in the past. I’d say I’ve done it regularly. I’ve figured out schedules for events in far-off time zones so I don’t miss the ones I’m most interested in, and then just stuck around for whatever the televising powers-that-be chose to throw on the screen next. Even though I get extremely nervous about injuries or errors or screaming too loudly, I’ve watched.

So why not now? Maybe for the same reason I no longer watch awards shows, or conventions, or large spectacular events of all shapes and sizes: It’s easier, quicker, and more fun to just follow the memes on social media. So far, my Olympics has mostly been about Pommel Horse Guy and the low-tech 51-year-old Turkish shooting medalist and also Pommel Horse Guy’s girlfriend whose X bio is “Ms. Pommel Horse” and the little girl who lost her bleep after Katie Ledecky sort of looked at her and maybe some clips of the female gymnastics champs after I know they won and did not fall on their heads and also, of course, Pommel Horse Guy in action.

Not missing the commentating (though if someone put together a Laurie Hernandez clip reel, I’d probably watch) or the suspense or the nerves or the young people doing the thing they’ve been training for all their lives but doing it slightly less perfectly on this one particular day and dashing the hopes and dreams of their countrymen. The meme-lympics is much more my speed these days. If you’re watching for real, tell me what awesome thing I’m missing, and if it’s on YouTube.

This week on the Parenting Roundabout Podcast

We revisited an episode from 2017 about things we obsessed about, and checked in on what we’re obsessing about right now. Not the Olympics for me, clearly, except maybe Pommel Horse Guy. On the episode, I mentioned being a little too obsessed with social media, see above. But one particular social media rabbit hole I keep falling down lately is the TV and movie clips in the reels on Facebook and Instagram. For a while, they were feeding me mostly Big Bang Theory, then Young Sheldon came on hard to give the parent show a run for its money, and now I’ve got bunches of Mom clips mixing it up. Also lots of scenes from the movie The Other Woman, for some reason, and now Gifted, a 2017 movie with Chris Evans and a little girl genius. I’m really kind of obsessed with the algorithm on these things and why it feeds me what it feeds me. And with the ease of procrastination we have now in this modern age.

What’s making me feel old this week

A couple of years ago, I bought a cute wraparound skirt online from a place called RipSkirt. And I love it, it’s great, really comfy. I’m wearing it right now as I type this. It doesn’t make me feel old at all. But … oh my, it has come to my attention, through their social media advertising and the models on their website, that RipSkirt is marketing pretty exclusively to, well, ladies of a certain age. And I am of a certain age, there’s no denying it; and it’s nice to know that older and less shapely gals can still get the modeling gigs; and really, theoretically, I totally support the concept of cute skirts specifically for my age bracket. It’s just sobering sometimes to come face to face with one’s apparent demographic.