Previously by Jesse Berney: The Other Avengers Are Pretty Busy Right Now
No one knows better than I do how cruel society can be to those who choose not to conform to its mores. My wife and I have chosen to live our lives strictly as though it were the year 2012, and we face near constant mocking of our uncompromising lifestyle.
The looks I get when people see me using my iPhone 5 are deeply hurtful. I can see the judgment in their eyes.
They look at my slightly unfashionable clothes and see a freak. But I am no freak, just a man who chooses to live in a simpler, more innocent time, a time when abortion was slightly more accessible in several states.
Yes, our choices come with sacrifice. When I went to HR to complain that my coworkers were creating a hostile work environment by discussing Seasons 6 and 7 of Mad Men — seasons that literally don’t exist in the world I choose to live in — I was met with disbelief and derision.
I don’t need your fancy modern technology. My 2012 Mazda gets us around just fine. Our high-definition, flat-screen television isn’t curved, but we manage.
Do you think it’s easy maintaining a lifestyle so different from yours? You think we don’t face challenges? I want to make jokes about how it’s the year in Back to the Future Part II, just like you do. I’d like to support someone for President other than Barack Obama.
Your social life is probably full of hot new restaurants and the latest movies. Not us. If we want to go on a date, we have to choose a place that’s successful enough to have been around for at least three years. The movies we watch are all on Netflix — and that means the DVDs come in the mail. (Streaming was available in 2012, but it’s really hard to keep track of what was available to stream back then.)
Yes, we have to make a few concessions to live in the modern world. We do our best to ignore our son, born in 2013, but the law requires us to feed and clothe him. Society’s cruel discrimination against us means that our six-year-old daughter was moved up from preschool against our wishes.
But we soldier on, committed to our 2012 lifestyle.
Are we better than you for choosing to live this way? No. Well, maybe a little. We are definitely not worse than you, and we are sick of being treated like pariahs just because we choose to live in a time different from yours.
The year of the London Olympics. The year Christopher Nolan’s vision for Batman came to a close. Benghazi. Clearly 2012 was the peak of human civilization, and I for one refuse to move on.
Tags: humor, jesse berney, life is a rich tapestry, totally valid life choices
This could not be more perfect.
“a time when abortion was slightly more accessible in several states.” lolsob and too real
Getting to relive Karl Rove’s meltdown over Obama winning again and again would be pretty great. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TwuR0jCavk
Also, too “please proceed, governor”
“Is this just math that you do as a Republican to make yourself feel better, or is this real?”
Possibly best Fox News moment ever.
Bless you, this was what I needed today.
Okay but I’ll grant him the London Olympics though
It will take a hell of a lot to top that. Your move, Brazil.
It must be so nice to live in ignorance of the Sochi games though.
Running joke in the house is “London 2016.”
(we may or may not have watched like 95% of the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2012 Games last week, COME ON, they were perfect in every conceivable way, plus Jess Ennis winning the heptathlon)
I am an opening/closing ceremonies fanatic as is my father before me. We have agreed 2012 and 1994 are peak ceremonies and respective benchmarks for summer and winter.
I tune out most of the opening ceremonies, but I’m a huge fan of the flame lighting ceremony. Barcelona ’92 is still the best I’ve seen: https://youtu.be/TCKYiBL3fPM?t=4m33s
That one is pretty hard to top. Best torch lighting so far, with the ski jump coming in as a close second.
Sorry, nothing for me will beat Sarajevo and Calgary (Winter 84 and 88). Small ceremonies, compared to today, but heartfelt.
In retrospect, Sarajevo is WRENCHING.
I can barely remember Barcelona. Those are before my time. But from what I’ve heard of Sarajevo… That may be coloneldad’s second favorite. Definitely winter, possibly overall.
(We take our rankings seriously. Lillehammer will always be his #1.)
The only thing I know/remember/could tell you about the Barcelona ceremonies is Freddie Mercury. Which, let’s be real, is probably enough.
I have REWATCHED them both.
Ending on Tim Berners-Lee in the opening!
Russell Brand and that insane Beatles/Willy Wonka mashup (a train wreck! A totally delightful train wreck!) And Brian May!
So English.
Modern society is just full of throwaway things, and no one cares where their technology comes from. I take pride in being able to fix my iPhone and my laptop by myself, instead of just buying a new one every few months.
Based on the number of ignored Windows notifications that my colleagues have accumulated, there are several people in my office that are choosing to live in 2012.
Sounds like somebody has voided their warranty.
pls note i used a gif from the 2012 olympics to conform to your lifestyle choices
I wish more people took as enlightened view as you did. Thank you for respecting my space.
SO BEAUTIFUL, SO PERFECT
Ehhhh, do we have to support someone else for president other than Barack Obama? I think I’m going to join you in 2012, when at least the idea of Donald Trump as a frontrunner had not occurred to America as a whole.
(Sorry, spoiler alert for 2015.)
You may not know this but in my time Donald Trump is the host of a popular reality television program.
actual lol! Also, my avatar picture is from before 2012, I think, and therefore will be supportive of your lifestyle also. Bless.
I am learning so much history today! Truly you should be praised as a hero for your choices.
Did you find that out by downloading primary sources and burning them to Blu-Ray, which you can play on your laptop that still has a physical disk drive?
I’m a devout believer in Always Live in the Present and your past lifestyle is oppressing me and infringing my Constitutional rights.
you are racist
Wouldn’t want to live in 2012. 2013, yeah, in an instant, but 2012? Never. You’re a weirdo.
I only wish I had the willpower and fortitude to live my life with as much conviction as you.
Sorry to spoil the party, guys, but there was no Toast in 2012.
please remove my article from this website immediately
this only makes the parody pitch-PERFECT, as the Internet also did not exist in Victorian times.
Good news. The first Pitch Perfect was released in Oct 2012.
As someone who lives in the year 1917, I have a friend transmit all Toast articles to me via Marconigram.
wait… what? it didn’t?
It ALWAYS existed… in our HEARTS
Beauty.
But I am no freak, just a man who chooses to live in a simpler, more innocent time, a time when abortion was slightly more accessible in several states.
[harsh laugh, followed by ragged sob]
We do our best to ignore our son, born in 2013, but the law requires us to feed and clothe him.
[cough]
Everything about this is perfect.
um hey can one of the editors put a trigger warning on the timestamp for this article? I’ve really had it with The Toast’s multiple daily microaggressions against those of us with chronologically different lifestyles.
As someone who lives in 2012 I am not familiar with the concept of “microaggression.” Please respect my choices and do not explain it to me.
Bzzt. That word was totally around in 2012 (and earlier). Heck, microaggressions.com was around in 2011.
Just like a privileged white male to not come across it til 2015! [shakes head]
“Trigger warning” wasn’t though, was it? It maybe existed on Tumblr in its infancy.
Nope, “trigger warning” was around — traced it back to 2007 and I’m sure it’s probably a lot older.
When I was little and didn’t understand the concept of time, I thought that when 1993 ended we would go back to 1990 and just live those three years over and over again forever. Turns out it could be a valid life choice!
In, for real, middle school, when I realized that I would be 27 in the year 2000, I thought, whelp, that’s awful young to die, but what can you do? Like, I couldn’t conceive of life after the turn of the millennium. For no real reason, I just could not picture the world existing after 2000.
Oh, well, then in *that* timeline, this dude is infringing on *my* right to exist in the past. The hell you say!
I was sure I’d be alive after that, but I couldn’t actually picture anything beyond the enormous 2000. 2001 was a Kubrick year, futuristic beyond belief.
True story: in 1986, I was six, and I thought that after 1999, we’d go back to 1986. Or maybe it was a denial of sorts because I was raised Christian, and at least one prominent author of the day wrote a book called ‘I Predict 2000 AD’ saying that the rapture would happen then. And if we never made it to 2000 then we’d never get raptured and I could live out adulthood. Or something.
Talking of reliving things… http://www.scarfolk.blogspot.com/ (Scarfolk Council; satire about an English town perpetually stuck in the 1970s.)
I was just the opposite. I spent the entire 1970s eagerly anticipating the year 2000.
*giggles*
I, too, choose to live in an era where the 49ers are superbowl contenders, Breaking Bad is still airing episodes, and California was just in a “business as usual” drought.
Isn’t ganging up on people online fun?
yes
As gangings-up-on go, I feel like “people disapproving of something written for public consumption, on a website the author is unlikely to ever read” is not super objectionable, but that’s just my crass, modern opinion.
I’m sure the author’s getting some really nasty responses, which is not ok, but I am all for criticism & questions (which are prompted by publishing an essay on a big platform) and mockery (which is prompted by publishing an essay high on smugness & low on context). “You do you” is great but it’s gotta go both ways!
Haven’t they already published two books? Don’t they have a blog? They’ve been giving people opportunities to make fun of them for years!
At least since 2012!
Gangings up to enforce cultural norms IS pretty Victorian, so maybe we shouldn’t…. wait. Nevermind.
“And now I choose to post these musings on a website that definitely was not around in 2012. You have to draw the line somewhere.”
Well SOME of us use the iPhone 5 because we suffer from Little Hand Syndrome, which all the perfumes of Arabia cannot sweeten.
*tries to clutch pearls*
*fingers too short to grasp them*
DAMMIT
*raises baby fist in solidarity*
The struggle is very real.
I’m raising my terrible S4mini to you in appreciation
I love you.
this is a little bit the opposite, but: taking retro to its logical conclusion
Or…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2mAs5pnA34
After going to confirm it on IMDB, 2012 was the year the moviegoing public got introduced to Jessica Chastain, who was in every other movie that came out. I’m in!
2012 was actually such a fantastic, cool year. i encourage your denial of this current reality 100%. sorry about your son cramping your style.
i personally live in a blending of the years 2007-8, and drink lots of red bull and wear plenty of oversize plastic jewelry and bizarrely athletic clothes to cement my belief. also, sia has not yet written “chandelier”, so i will.
2012 was actually such an awesome year. i encourage your denial of this current reality 100%. sorry about your son cramping your style.
i myself live in a blend of the years 2007-8 and drink lots of red bull, wear oversize plastic jewelry and bizarrely athletic clothing to cement this worldview. also, sia has not yet written “chandelier”, so i will. be prepared! it shall be fire.
2012 actually really sucked for me, but I will take the first 6 months of 2013 over any other period in time, ever, because IT WAS AWESOME.
“Change we literally can’t believe in”
I’m crying from laughter.
Fuck, I just remembered, I got laid off in 2012. I’ll pass.
How does the “life is a rich tapestry” tag not have any other articles?!?
Also, are you sure it’s okay to post this on The Toast? It wasn’t even a thing in 2012?
I hereby vote to have the “life is a rich tapestry” tag retroactively applied to appropriate pieces such as the one about the Maine hermit and actually couldn’t it just go on all link roundups?
Also the one about pegging which is what I think of now whenever I hear ‘rich tapestry’, a phrase forever now linked with Captain Picard and pegging.
Between Trump, drought, and the numerous horrible sex abuse scandals in the evangelical world, I for one would be QUITE happy to do a retread of 2012. I think I would appreciate it a great deal more this time. Last time I was a recent homeschool-highschool grad who, while she was NOT quite sure Obama was the Antichrist, was definitely voting resignedly for Mitt.
Anything to avoid a present in which I am trying to resign myself to Trump’s winning the primary and perhaps the general election so as to avoid progressive attacks of apoplexy, and a future in which I shall have to confront his telling-it-like-it-is antics with a stiff drink in hand.
I love this article and I love all you commenters, whether in this time or others.
I find it weird that for Americans, Boris Johnson and Alan Sugar are now effectively the same person.
P.S. I drew my profile pic in, like, 2007, is that okay for you?
GUYS Victorian bullshit lady has sparked a MASSIVE debate on my Facebook on a scale I haven’t seen in years, including a man I haven’t seen in two years telling me to ‘get off your high horse for once’ and insulting me at length because my criticisms of this woman were rude(???) I think he wanted me to apologise for being impolite to someone I’ve never met and thought the best way to achieve this was to be INCREDIBLY rude to me directly.
A lot of strong feelings on this subject, is what I’m saying.
A friend of mine just dropped it in FB with no comment and then… I think everyone refrained from commenting because we could no longer see the keyboard because our eyes had rolled right out of our heads.
(Like, you do you, lady, but that’s a WHOOOOOOLE lotta Smug.)
bahahahahaha I'm so happy with my iPhone5 and my 2012 Mazda! may they never change! That is me!
I both delight in this, and also cannot personally imagine a more gruesome punishment than being forced to live in 2012 for the rest of my life, like I’m pretty sure I had literal nightmares about that while I was tagging my DW posts with “2012 is the apocalypse” and curling up in the foetal position listening to “This Year” by the Mountain Goats on repeat and weeping