A Conversation Between Two People About Sharknado

“So, it’s been almost a week. Have you seen it yet? Have you seen Sharknado?”

“Seriously…that’s why you called me?”

“Come on; tell me if you’ve seen it.”

“No, I haven’t. And I don’t plan to.”

“Oh man, come on, you’re killing me. I need to talk about this. The Tara Reid acting of sorts. The return of Steve Sanders. The science! Why are you being so anti-fun?”

“I’m not. I just don’t understand why everyone is getting all worked up over a cheesy SyFy movie.”

“And the pot starts talking down to the kettle. Remember that one with Debbie Gibson that you wouldn’t stop talking about?”

“First of all, it’s Deborah Gibson now. Secondly, you shut your mouth. Those were classics. Let’s not forget that in Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus, the Shark ate a plane in mid-air!”

“So you do like that crap.”

“I did.”

“Are you about to go on a hipster rant?”

“No, it’s a post-hipster rant.”

“Fine, proceed.”

Sharknado poster
“You see, the SyFy movies are stupid and cheesy and enjoyable. But they are like an extra chicken nugget in your McDonald’s order or an extra dumpling from New Big Wong. It’s a guilty pleasure. You’re not supposed to go that crazy for it. Everyone on Twitter sucked the fun out of Sharknado by being too excited for it, as if they hadn’t seen a cheesy SyFy movie before. I mean, fuck, they’ve already made movies with sharks eating planes, what’s new here??”

“You done?”

“No! The entire Internet was overrun last week with snarky people making snarky jokes about a movie that was clearly made for about 30 dollars in about 30 minutes for some cheap, summer programming. Oh really, Tara Reid can’t act? Wow, biting commentary. Oh really Jim Cantore, you’ve never seen a Sharknado, I’m stunned. Oh the special effects suck, I—“

“Ok I get it.”

“You asked for it.”

“I am going to go out on a limb and say I did not ask for your hipster opinion. Though I have asked you stupid things in the past like that awful Jack Swagger video.”

“I don’t know why I indulge you sometimes.”

“You just like getting angry about things.”

“Do not.”

“Sharknado’s ratings – go.”

“Well, yeah, it annoys the crap out of me when people assume people yapping on Twitter are going to send ratings through the roof. As if the whole world is on Twitter, thus if something happens on Twitter, it will show up the next morning in ratings. Truth is, the vast majority of people in America are not on Twitter at any given moment. And I never understood why a thousand people making fun of a crappy movie would get people to watch it. It’s not like the wrestling when people are like, ‘Yo, Daniel Bryan is killing it right now’ and I have to see what’s happening. I knew what was happening with Sharknado and I did not care. God I could not have cared any less.”

“Why is this making you so angry?”

“Because I wish there was an alternate universe that I got to watch Sharknado like I watched the Deborah Gibson crap. Just on a whim and randomly. Like I’m flipping channels on a Sunday afternoon and there it is, a terrible cheesy movie that will help me forget about the fact that Mark Sanchez has thrown another interception and the Jets are down 3 scores.”

“Would talking about the Jets making you feel better?”

“…..”

“You made a sound but I couldn’t quite make it out.”

“…..”

“Okay, that sounded like anger, we can move on. Or back to Sharknado. See I really think you’ve missed the point entirely. It’s fun watching crap with people. It’s just that instead of watching it with your buddies, aka me, on the couch over a few beers, you’re watching it with your online social networks.”

“First off, that sounds horrible. Secondly off, you sound like Mark Zuckerberg. I don’t want to do things with my online social networks.”

“That’s total bullshit, you tweet about UConn football and your dislike for Coach Gramps on a daily basis during September and October. Frankly, by November you’ve lost your will to care, but that’s the same thing.”

“I think that’s different.”

“How is live tweeting another UConn loss any different than live tweeting about a shitty SyFy movie? I think you’ve been in DC too long, have been exposed to hipsters too long and you’ve become one of them. You’ve become a douche.”

“Ouch.”

“The dude I knew would have jumped headfirst into Sharknado.”

“Pun intended?”

“No, but awesome.”

“See, maybe you should’ve tweeted that out. You would’ve gotten like 12 retweets.”

“So if Twitter didn’t exist, if you were just home by yourself on that Thursday night, no access to your social media networks – would you have watched Sharknado?”

“Possibly.”

“Possibly?”

“Like if I was flipping channels, like with Mega Shark, I would’ve stopped on it and given it a chance. I would not have planned my evening around it.”

“So what did you watch instead?”

“Uhhh,”

“Oh God.”

“I mean, yeah, just something on the Internet.”

“Good Lord, you spent the night watching porn didn’t you?”

“No, not that. And please, I wouldn’t tell you that unless I watched something awesome.”

“Old wrestling?”

“Yeah.”

“So you spent the night watch wrestling on YouTube from, let me guess 20 years ago – “

10 years ago.”

“Okay, from 10 years ago and you’re making fun of people that snarked about sharks on Twitter?”

“How about those Jets, am I right?”

Follow me on Twitter

Comments