Welcome everyone to the land of Quarantine.  Forget Narnia, Hogwarts, Pandora, El Dorado, Middle Earth, Hyrule, Neverland, Westeros, New Jersey, and Korriban (Please, please forget Korriban).  The land of Quarantine is more tangible, more foreboding, more dastardly (and you don’t get to use that word often enough).  Frankly, it’s more real, especially when compared to New Jersey.  And in this land, there are a myriad of things to see, mostly from your own house or backyard.  If you are an essential worker, you get the chance to see those areas beyond the zone of safety which is your parcel of land or apartment or van by the river (I’m looking at you Fred Jones).  

Let me try to break it down for all you non-essentials and recluses.  The place you live is like Hogwarts, spoiler alert, when they place all the protective spells around the school so the bad guys can’t get in.  Outside of that protective spell is where the essential workers fly their brooms into thunderstorms and dementors which represent places and people that might infect them.  Or to place it in terms of Middle Earth, one does not simply walk into public.  The very air you breathe is a virus-filled fume.  Now, we are on the same webpage.

The part of the land of Quarantine I would like to discuss today is internet videos.  A lot of us were already watching a number of internet videos in our normal routine.  Now, some of us are relying on this activity with even greater frequency.  I find that perusing Facebook or YouTube is like being out in the Jundland Wastes of Tatooine (if you don’t know what this is, please don’t even look it up).  Political videos and (mis)informational videos about Covid-19 are the sandpeople and once they know you are around, they disappear and return in greater numbers.  I will go a long way for a Star Wars reference.  

These are the videos that I find most stressful and wearing in these current times.  I can go to literally almost any website right now and find a clip of a recent Task Force Briefing and they will have the part of the briefing in which the President brainstorms use of disinfectant and/or sunlight within the human body.  The site will have a stance on the clip: for, against, what did he say, this is serious, this is a joke, and probably dozens of other views are out there.  The point is not where you stand on what was said, but that the internet is inundated with crap like this.  And most of the misinformation about the current pandemic is coming from non-medical sources.  I don’t know about you guys, but I don’t rely on my political leaders for scientific, evidence-based information.  I hope they use the scientific community and medical experts to inform themselves and for passing along good information to us.  And it is not just an issue with the President brainstorming and throwing out potential avenues of research to an audience of millions (Probably should have considered discussing the idea with the actual Task Force instead of during the press conference, just saying).  

There are other sources of terrible, wrong, inadequate and otherwise poor information.  Random people, celebrities, online personalities, the guy who lives on your street that you think might be a serial killer; they have all decided that the world needs to hear from them on this topic.  Suddenly, they are medical experts.  Except they aren’t.  They have no education or experience in this field.  Especially the serial killer.  The only thing he seems to know is how to look creepy, make his house and yard look like a horror movie setting, and play the drums.  And I am not even sure he knows how to play the drums.  I hear a lot of drumming.  I can’t tell if it is good.  Is he playing along with the soundtrack to Whiplash or is he crazy and can’t play for shit?  Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate that he has hobbies and things to keep him occupied, especially given the stay-at-home orders.  But I am not interested in his medical opinion.

One other form of video that I really want to pick a bone with, perhaps a fibula, is the kind of video that tries to convince people to get off their phones, off the internet, off social media.  Not a bad message of course and we could all probably stand to take that advice, but that’s not what I want to discuss.  They want people to get off their phones, but the videos are spread across the internet and social media through phones.  If people are staying off their phones, they won’t be able to see the videos.  If people are on their phones, they can see the videos, but they are on their phones.  Are you with me?  

Allow me to illustrate this same sort of concept and how it once affected my grade.  Long ago, before the land of Quarantine, I took English my freshman year of college.  Surprised?  Anyway, we had to write a paper and before it was due, the professor had us pair up and peer review the writing, give our thoughts and give a score from 0 to 5 out of 5 that would be part of the overall grade for the assignment.  I wrote a riveting essay about the samurai in Japan.  And I know you aren’t surprised about that.  Just another “white guy writing about feudal Japan” situation.  

Meanwhile, my peer partner wrote an essay about how people complain about everything.  This was in 2004 mind you, people have always complained, before 2004 and since 2004.  Maybe she was trying to describe the feeling in society that complaining was a constant thing you had to hear about across personal relationships, media, nationally, locally, etc.  When we discussed her essay, I made the following point (and I want to stress to you I thought I was being clever and didn’t realize this was going to come back hard and I didn’t hold it against her because I gave her a 5 out of 5).  I told her that she was doing the exact thing she was writing an essay about.  She was complaining about how everyone complains about everything.  Meta, right?  Also, stupid, on my part.  She was so mad, but being a stranger to me and passive-aggressive at that, she didn’t yell at me or attack me.  She said nothing further to me, ever.  For the peer review part, she gave me a 3 out of 5.  60%.  And I am telling you, my paper was dope.  The bomb.  It was delightful, eloquent, informative.  That professor knew nothing about the samurai and I just dropped a massive truth bomb on her.  I don’t think it would be an understatement to say I changed the professor’s life.

I think you see the point I am making.  If you are reading this, you are already on your phone.  If you want to know about the samurai and feudal Japan, I am your man.  If you want to write an essay complaining about how people complain about everything, I will give you 100% on the peer review part and I will keep my comments to myself.  If you want to drink disinfectant, I hope you have health and life insurance.