There’s an old SNL skit with Jason Sudeikis and Kristin Wiig called “Two A-Holes” and it was a recurring bit on the show. Sudeikis’s character would just walk into a place chomping gum loudly calling everybody “babe.” “Hey babe. Yeah babe.” Wiig’s character would be mostly disinterested in anything that was going on but occasionally spout off something spoiled and snotty like “Buy me a present.”
The joke was not much for nuance and the A-holes lived up to their billing. Nobody would be that jerkish in public – and certainly not without some level of remorse or pause.
But the skit wasn’t one of the laugh-out-loud skits that SNL was known for. Even less so in the 2020’s where it seems that an A-Hole is the “in” thing to be.
Unapologetically rude is everywhere right now. Politicians seem to be falling over each other trying to come up with more and more a-hole’ish laws. Laws against drag shows. Laws against reproductive rights. Laws allowing you to beat a kid with a learning disorder in school.
It’s not just politicians, certainly. Even the ones facing arrest and calling for his followers to protest. The a-holing of society runs deep. Watch the NCAA basketball tournament and look at nearly any head coach berating the referees from opening tip to final whistle. We even had a winning basketball coach rip his shirt off after they beat Kansas. Now THAT is a-hole behavior.
Look in the stands and you’ll see viral video of a mom whose wrestler lost a match crumple her glasses in a fit of rage. Check more social media and you’ll see the Proud Boys interrupting a LGBTQ-themed reading party for kids – thankfully, the hosts of the event did a little nose punching to spoon the protest.
Being an a-hole is in, babe. The only positive side of it is that there are a million ways to expose an a-hole being an a-hole. Live television. TikTok. Twitter. Even Facebook, the home of a-holes, helps call a spade an a-hole.
Here’s hoping that the era of the a-hole has an end and the era of just being a nice person has its day at some point. Helping old ladies across the street and helping to legislate those less fortunate should have a spot in humankind. Just like Jason Sudeikis was once an “a-hole” on TV, now he’s playing a nice guy on “Ted Lasso.”
In the meantime, you don’t have to look far to find an a-hole. Let’s just hope it’s not you.
(Catch Chris Kamler on Twitter, where he pontificates as @TheFakeNed)
