by Don Hall

From Slate:

Q. Not British: My girlfriend took a deep dive into British-themed TV—The Crown, Downton Abbey, Fleabag, Bridgerton—over the course of the pandemic. She has adopted an affected accent that sounds vaguely British in both vocabulary and her inflection. Her vowels sound strange, and she phrases all her questions in a very “British” way. I know I shouldn’t mind, but it drives me crazy! She’s not British in any way and it feels like she’s trying too hard to be someone she’s not. It reminds me of the kids in middle school who adopted accents in misguided bids for attention. I’ve tried to bring it up with lighthearted jokes, but she’s not getting the hint. Am I crossing the line or being too controlling if I ask her to tone down the accent?

Not British --

We are currently in an epic defined by people pretending to be someone they are not. 

Instagram “influencers” are so prolific in number it’s hard not to throw your iPhone into traffic. 

The first wave was “Look at my tits!” as twenty-year olds took selfies of themselves in bikinis on beaches staring into the camera as if to say “If I was selling a car or a hamburger you’d buy it because of the implication that driving it or eating it would get you some pussy but now it’s just you looking at me and jerking off.” The second wave has become “Look at how normal I look in this shot but if I arch my back and suck in my gut a bit, I look like your fantasy.” Kind of like an army of hot Penn & Tellers showing you the tricks while still amazing you with the results.

There are the mini-leagues of white kids trumpeting the evisceration of their “white privilege” who still want avocado toast and menial jobs that pay well. Other kids who have decided that “activist” is a career and expect to gain status and eventually book deals and positions writing for The Atlantic despite a lack of basic writing skills in English.

Black people pretending to be Republicans, white people pretending to be black people, celebrities pretending to buy their own Dunkin’, and Russian GenZ kids pretending to be Americans really angry about shit we pretend to care about in the States and poking at people via social media hacks.

None of this is new. 55-year old men who pretend to be 25-year old men dating 20-year old women pretending to be interested in AARP-level discounts and humping daddy for rent. 55-year old women pretending that those Botox injections and expensive face creams make them look younger instead of slightly freakish.

People pretending that writing for Medium is somehow more than blogging. Transgender women pretending to be biological women and biological women being called “menstruators” and pretending not to find that horrifyingly reductive. 

Ask yourself this: is your girlfriend a seventeen year old boy or wooden mannequin pretending to be your Bridgestone loving girlfriend or is she actually a young woman? If so, be grateful her only fraud is the accent.