EVERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT
Elmo
‘Elmo is just checking in! How is everybody doing?’
Pardon?
This is where you’re supposed to tell Elmo how you’re doing.
Why would I do that?
Because that’s what people (19,000 of them) did when the Sesame Street star recently asked that question on X.
What were their responses?
‘The world is burning around us.’ Fun.
‘Each day the abyss we stare into grows a unique horror.’
Wow.
‘In the grand scheme of the universe, our existence is merely a blink, devoid of inherent meaning or purpose.’
Isn’t anybody happy?
Apparently not.
Can I ask a question?
Do you want to ask how I’m doing?
I’m wondering how Elmo uses X.
You mean the lack of opposable thumbs? He finger-types.
No, I mean because he’s a puppet!
Oscar the Grouch is a puppet too and he replied to the post.
I refuse to ask about the emotional landscape of a piece of green carpet.
Oh, go on…
Fine. Is he taking a non-dualist stance on the concept of contentment, emphasising unity amid diversity?
No, he’s grouchy.
Imagine my surprise.
You scoff but some serious thinkers replied to Elmo.
Big Bird and Cookie Monster?
Them, obviously, but President Biden also chipped in.
What did Potus say?
‘I know how hard it is some days to sweep the clouds away and get to sunnier days.’
That’s a shame.
That the leader of the free world gets sad?
No, that his tweet-writer didn’t spot the repeat of the word ‘days’.
We’ll overlook that slip. The study of appealing inanimate characters is, actually, a deeply intellectual pursuit.
Next, you’ll be telling me that there’s a professor of cute studies.
There’s a professor of cute studies.
Who? Where? Why?
Joshua Paul Dale, PhD, of Tokyo’s Chuo University.
Does the world need educating on the power of cuteness?
It’s a massive moneyspinner, so yes. Note the success of hit online game Palworld.
Never heard of it.
The Guardian calls it ‘Pokémon with guns’. Sounds hard to intellectualise.
The paper did wonder whether it was a ‘neoliberal pastiche... accentuating the immoral exploitation of these animals as mere resources’.
And was it?
No. It was Pokémon with guns. If you want something more high-minded, Prof Dale’s insights feature in the Cute exhibition at London’s Somerset House.
What is Cute hoping to show us?
That the blurred ‘line between desire, seduction, agency and manipulation... is merely a reflection of cute’s own vital indeterminacy’.
Right. And what have people actually gone there to see?
Hello Kitty toys and a fur lift.
Does Hello Kitty have words of comfort for the dispossessed?
Nope.
What, you mean she’s not on X like Elmo?
I mean she hasn’t got a mouth. She’d make an ideal civil servant.
I beg your pardon?
Britain’s civil service has invested £160,000 in training staff out of workplace ‘micro-aggressions’.
Micro-aggressions?
Small aggressions. Better than a punch on the nose. Worse than a blank stare.
For example?
THERE’S A PROFESSOR OF ‘CUTE STUDIES’ IN TOKYO
Audible sighing. Eye rolling. Phone scrolling while someone is speaking.
You can’t sigh without a mouth.
Profound. I’d put that out on X and see what Elmo has to say. I’m sure he doesn’t practise micro-aggression.
Because he shares Rousseau’s belief in the innate goodness of man? No. He can’t roll his eyes.