A treatise against takes

Unless you live under a rock, I’m sure by now that you’ve heard of and probably seen Will Smith’s slap of comedian Chris Rock at this past weekend’s Oscars. The takes quickly came flooding in.

Director Judd Apatow tweeted that Rock “could have been killed.” A white woman on Twitter asked people to imagine Smith slapping Betty White, which was honestly a racist twisting of what actually transpired. Others baselessly insinuated that Smith may be a domestic abuser.

Former NBA basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabber wrote that Smith “perpetuated stereotypes about the Black community” on his Substack. He curiously left out mentioning the time he punched fellow NBA player Kurt Benson, breaking his hand in the process.

Everyone seemingly had a take on it. One guy claimed that Smith lost his cool because he was angry that his son Jaden sometimes wore dresses. Another on Twitter tried to connect the slap to prior relationship issues.

But the thing is, none of these takes really matter, in the end. Six months from now no one will remember the slap. Sometimes there aren’t connections to larger societal issues, though it could be argued that the incident has at least boosted awareness of alopecia, which Smith’s wife Jada suffers from thanks to an autoimmune disease.

It’s pretty clear that Smith simply lost his cool in the wrong moment. He tried later to claim he was protecting his family and eventually apologized. But everyone has a temper and everyone has lost it at the wrong moment. It probably doesn’t end in violence but whomst among us has never lost their cool and later regretted it. It’s a normal human occurrence.

But this piece isn’t really about Smith. It’s about takes. At the end of the day, no one really cares what you think of the news of the day. It’s a tough pill to swallow, and I should know, I get paid to write down my opinions.

Everyone has a take these days and 99% of them are utter rubbish spoken from people who don’t have a flipping clue what they’re talking about. From trans issues, to Ukraine, to police reform, everyone considers themselves to be a pundit these days.

Even pundits are fond of popping off about issues they know nothing about. This is especially true for pundits with an economics background for some reason. It’s like, we get it dudes, you’ve always assumed you were the smartest guys in the room but no one ever had the balls to tell you the truth.

Anyways, I know the New York Times has everyone in a panic these days over self censorship these days but good lord, the world doesn’t always need your take.