It's Uni Lad's world, and we're just living in it. Definitive proof: this Perth man, who checked in a can of Emu Export (the beloved Western Australian tinnie that I can tell you from personal experience recalls sex in a canoe, ie it's fucking close to water) on his domestic Qantas flight, in what I can only describe as this week's most transparent attempt to go viral.According to several half-hearted news articles making the rounds this morning, "Dean" successfully checked in a solitary can of beer on his flight home from Melbourne to Perth yesterday. Despite Dean's concerns that his precious cargo would not remain intact on the five-hour flight, he successfully retrieved it at his destination. After flight crew and fellow passengers uploaded photographs of the can to social media, Dean was interviewed by multiple viral news outlets about his triumph.It's all just so painfully easy, isn't it? This kind of performative blokeness is literally designed to trend on Reddit Australia. A purely unnecessary stunt that shares easily on Facebook yet collapses easily under questioning. Because you can literally bring alcohol in your hand luggage on a domestic flight. Nobody is going to stop you from doing that. It is allowed. Just imagine Dean, standing, waiting, watching the luggage conveyor belt at the airport. Glancing eagerly around him to see if anyone has noticed yet. Getting his phone ready to make a Boomerang video.The choice of beer, too. For those lucky enough to be unfamiliar, Export is a working class brew re-appropriated. A Pabst Blue Ribbon for the Kirin J Callinan types who frequent your local. Private school boys who aren't as good at footy as they'd like to be. It tastes awful but it's cheap, and for better or worse the signature yellow and red label has become synonymous with Western Australiana. Export is as good a reason to flee Perth as any, which is why it's so completely irritating that old mate Dean decided to take it with him on his cheeky Melbourne weekend with the boys.Is this the low altitude peak up to which Australian dudes must now aspire to climb? To be hailed as an "absolute fucken hero" by Pedestrian TV? To be retweeted by a Dad with a blue tick? To be the lead story on news.com.au for three hours? To appear in this admittedly similarly click-hungry VICE article about how easy it is to game "Aussie" culture for likes and shares?Aim higher, everybody. The culture you're trying so desperately to participate in is a construct. Emu Export isn't even brewed in Western Australia anymore. Sinking a sad little tinnie doesn't make you a man. And, for the record, in terms of attempted viral content…I'd rate this 5/10 at best. Be subtler next time.Follow Kat on Twitter
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