These Pop Culture Topics Will Offend Everyone at Your Thanksgiving Table
Everyone knows the hot-button topics to avoid at the Thanksgiving dinner table—politics, religion, negative states of employment, weight gain, and your mom’s cooking. However, what may seem like topical, culturally relevant, alternative subjects may actually backfire when brought up within the family. These are trigger topics, folks. Tread lightly. Or don’t tread at all. That’s my advice.
Topic: Hello Kitty = Not a real cat
This year we learned some devastating news—Hello Kitty, the beloved Japanese character with whiskers, ears, and other cat-like features, and who sometimes wears a dress, is not, in fact, a cat. She is a human girl, who actually owns a cat. And she’s British! And a Scorpio! Now what about our own cat? Who’s to say she’s not also a teenage girl in disguise? She really is particular about her hair and she gets so finicky when people pet her. Look closely. Closer.
Most likely to be offended: Your little cousin who didn’t know, your adult relative who also did not know, and your actual cat.
Topic: Charles Manson is getting married
The bad news: Charles Manson settling down. The other bad news: You’re not. However, your folks will pat you on the back for your excellent mate choosing—and that happens to be no one at all, EVEN BETTER—because you decided not to marry Charles Mason, unlike some people.
Most likely to be offended: Your grandparents, who will remind you that they’d like to meet their great-grandchildren before they die, even if that happens to be at the hands of a psychotic mass murder/cult leader, thankyouverymuch.
Topic: The word of the year is “Vape’’
What is a vape? Is it a person? Is it a feeling? Is it a sense of being? Is it a verb? Can it be plural? All these answers and more in the new Oxford’s dictionary entry. Now try using it in a sentence. Can you? I can’t.
Most likely to be offended: Your vape-loving cousin. Don’t you know? It’s all the rage these days. Plus, he’s trying to quit. Seriously.
Topic: What Millennials are doing/doing wrong
Take a page out of the trend reporting playbook and analyze all activities partaken by Gen Y. This includes: Tinder, Uber, retail transparency, Grumpy Cat, bitcoin, student loans, Instagram, food trucks, Kickstarter, emoji, Obamacare, hookup culture, YouTube beauty gurus, and all things Beyoncé. Then overgeneralize and criticize everything…. actually, DON’T. Don’t do any of this.
Most likely to be offended: Anyone over the age of 45. Also, anyone under.
Topic: Catcalling
This is a topic for all ages, although, unfortunately, the paradigms of prior generations’ catcalling may have slightly shifted and will make for poor dinnertime conversation. You’ll have to explain to Grandma that now instead of a gentleman wryly asking for a glimpse of your ankles, he will demand to see your ankles, and then repeatedly stab your boyfriend for telling him to stop.
Most likely to be offended: Again, probably your cat.
Topic: Willow and Jaden Smith’s T magazine interview
By far the BEST Q&A OF ALL TIME ran in the New York Times’ T Magazine last weekend. It featured the young son and daughter of Will and Jada Pinkett Smith, and it transcended all sense of being, rather, “a place of oneness.’’ Also, it made close to no sense and should not be analyzed by the average American family tripping on tryptophan at any given time.
Most likely to be offended: EVERYONE. Your siblings will never be on the same spectrum as the Smith kids, so don’t even try.
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