Here’s Every Sanctimonious Facebook Update You’re Going to Read About the US Election

When you are trying to think, the clock always ticks that bit louder, that bit slower. Tick. That's the clock in your boyfriend's room, hunched, as he is, over his glowing laptop, the ephemera of his third wank of the day scattered around him, still in his pants with the heating on. Tock. He's taken the day off from his job as a creative at a design agency to instead stay on Twitter, Facebook and Snapchat all day getting #numbers. Tick. He's got a tab open with polls analysis site FiveThirtyEight loaded up, even though he doesn't really know how the polls work. Tock. He's got an ironic "Make Britain Great Again" hat he paid 25 fucking quid for from Zazzle. Tick. He's going to wear it to the same late-night Hackney speakeasy election party that I am going to tonight. Tock.

And here he is, the glow of the laptop making him look wan and weak, finally typing out the Facebook status to end all Facebook statuses, the blips of binary code and digits that will, like a butterfly flapping its wings, somehow unseat Donald Trump (your boyfriend still calls him "Donald Drumpf") from his presidential bid.

And it goes:

3 Likes, 1 Comment from his mum saying "Cockwomble! Brilliant x"

Meanwhile, your girlfriend who thinks Lena Dunham is good and who is not even quietly disappointed in Taylor Swift for not declaring at this election ("It's such a shame," she's saying, over her hygge book. "She's, like, so influential? And yet she hasn't said she's on one side or another. I'm starting to wonder if she's even a feminist any more, hashtag tee-bee-aitch!"), is really pro-Hillary after seeing a six-photo gallery of old pictures of her looking young and studious on HelloGiggles.

"She's a woman, but she's also a politician," your girlfriend is saying, adding "but what about the Iraq war" to the flat's list of banned sayings, along with "emails", "detox tea is a myth" and "Game of Thrones books". "And that makes me like her."

And ah god, she's tagged you in on her status update:

12 Likes, 2 Comments, both of which are from girls she knows called "Laura" saying "with #Her too x"

It's that self-proclaimed smart guy who you went to sixth form with and who always derailed English lessons with extremely long unrelated monologues about Ayn Rand, and who dropped out of his Engineering degree because living away from home frightened him too much, and now it's six years later and he works late-night shifts at the BP garage so he can stay up and sketch intricate pencil drawings of dragons in a fucked up old A3 sketchbook while serving commuters Mars bars and hot pasties while tutting.

His wispy moustache hair has somehow grown long enough to get tangled into the wet fronds of the sideburns he's been growing since he was 18. This guy only drinks out of a goblet; he's on his second of three warnings for wearing pentagram jewellery to work; he deep down hates himself in such a hollow way that he can't really articulate it; he could have been anything and chose, through the path of least resistance, to be nothing.

This guy – i.e. you; you are this guy – he reckons he's the first person in history to figure out the Trump/Hitler comparison and hath taketh to Faceth book to enlighten the masses:

1 Share (WoW Guild Facebook Page), 6 Comments, 0 Likes

Your uncle who "knows how politics works" and has had a cupboard full of shotguns ever since he got Really Into those freemen-on-the-land forums has an opinion, but first he needs to start a Facebook account (your uncle, you remember, deleted his original Facebook account after the divorce from Aunt Lynn – "Too many memories," he said, holding a Guinness glass just a little bit too hard, "too many tagged photos. Too many… good times" – and plus he's exceptionally scared of the government tracking him for some reason [the government taking a special interest in the extermination of van drivers who maintain Britain's last remaining Mott the Hoople newsletter and still make phone calls to Babestation because they don't know how Pornhub works]), so he's signed up as "Liam No Name", and anyway:

62 comments, one of which is from your Uncle's mate Neil who doesn't believe AIDS exists, 2 Likes

Ah, shit. Fuck. Why did— why did you sign your dad up to Facebook that Christmas? You thought it would be fun, didn't you? You thought it'd help you stay in touch. You've been drifting away from your dad, haven't you, since you left home, two asteroids gently nudging each other in the vacuum of space and drifting coolly, emotionlessly away from each other, and he just seems further away now, doesn't he, consumed as he is with his dad things, the trains and the dog and when Top Gear is coming back, and it's just— it's just not how it used to be, is it, with the two of you?

Do you think – really, if you sit down and think about it, turn your phone screen over and focus – do you think, ever, you will get that magic back? Or has the relationship with your dad gone into a chrysalis from which it will never emerge as a caterpillar again, and it might come out a moth or it might come out a butterfly, but either way it is changed, morphed, in a way you can't control and a way you can't tell him you hate? When was the last time he called you unprovoked? When was the last time you texted him to see if he was OK? How many beats does that old heart have in it any more? Does he even know if his prostate is good or not? You have a finite amount of dad left and you still can't bring yourself to call him on a Thursday night when all you're doing is sitting at home waiting for a potato to bake. Is he the bad parent, or are you the bad child? Bet you're just getting him socks again for Christmas this year, aren't you? "It's all he likes!" you tell your boyfriend. But it isn't. It's just the only thing you ever bothered to discover he enjoyed, and then you gave up. You absolute prick.

Anyway:

I refuse to go in on your mum because mums are sacred and anyway this is the only Facebook status she's made this week:

And then there's you, isn't there, but you're above it all, aren't you, because you see things from above, floating, always, above the action, too good to have an opinion – sure, if pressed, you could have one, but you'd have to explain so much, wouldn't you? You've read a lot of Slate pieces and you'd have to explain each one for context, and you know Hillary is low-key meant to be bad but you don't exactly know how bad, and so maybe you'll comment on a few threads – "fucked either way" (2 Likes) – and maybe you'll Like a few statuses calling Trump an Oompa Loompa, but you won't get involved, will you, because fundamentally – look inwards, look past your guts and into your bones, turn your arch sideways glances in on yourself and look deep, deeper, the deepest – fundamentally you know you are a coward, an uninformed coward, and this is big, too big, much bigger than you, much grander; you don't dare weigh in one way or another on this election because all it's made you feel is ultimately insignificant, in this country and America, in your life and within the universe, this election has made you realise one thing: You Don't Matter. So you do something ironic, like this:

— because that's all you can do. Pull a smile across your face and watch through blistered eyes as the world burns.

@joelgolby

More stuff about this election:

The Election Isn't Going to Doom America, No Matter Who Wins

What You Need to Know If You're Staying Up Tonight to Watch the US Election

I Asked Ordinary Voters if They Could Explain Clinton's Complicated Email Scandal