We know how you feel and frankly, we agree with you. We’re sick of all the conversations, Facebook posts, Tweets, emails and articles about Jeremy Lin. The blogosphere, at least for Asian Americans, has been oversaturated with the latest observations about the Taiwanese American basketball player. As someone who has never followed sports, I now forcibly know enough “Lin” puns to feed a horde of starving North Korean orphans. Can you feed puns to hungry children?
I am a bitter, hateful person so I thought I would give back to my community on the best ways to avoid what I like to call “Jeremy Lin Fatigue.” (Try to make a pun out of that, Daily News.) Here are my five tips on how to deflect all things Lin-related. Lin-lated?
1. Delete every Asian American friend you have on Facebook.
If there’s one demographic at fault for talking too much about Jeremy Lin, it’s us. US. WE ARE DOING THIS TO OURSELVES. Facebook doesn’t help by grouping common status updates together under the same topic, which means that every time I check the site (which is like, every 4-5 seconds, for reals), I have to endlessly scroll through yet another headline about the Knicks or Lin. But instead of leaving mean comments like “OMG STFU” or “WE ALREADY KNOW THIS” in hopes that they will stop, the nicer approach would be to just delete them from your friends list. They won’t know and you’ll now have more time to look at other people’s photos of their newborn babies.
Yes, I know that the APA community is super excited to finally have an amazing basketball player capture America’s attention and it’s great that someone is out there breaking stereotypes about Asian American men. My complaint is over the fact that every single article and observation about Lin has to be posted multiple times on Facebook. If you see a new article or video or score or photo about Lin, enjoy it but you DO NOT HAVE to share it.
2. Befriend more non-Asians, specifically those who don’t watch sports. Like Caucasian nerds. Or the Amish.
In fact, the Amish is a brilliant idea! Who better to hang out with than those who abstain from all forms of technology and organized sports? Okay, I don’t know about the organized sports part but when’s the last time you saw an Amish farmer do a lay-up? Yeah, exactly. Are there no Amish people near you? Then do what Ernie did and MOVE AWAY FROM THE ASIANS.
3. Delete your Twitter account.
Who needs up to the minute breaking news about Whitney Houston dying or whatever your friend is going to eat for lunch? All the better to get rid of those play-by-play tweets about Jeremy Lin scoring yet again during the latest Knicks game.
4. Don’t read blogs like this one.
Read what other people read, like Huffington Post or something. You can come back when basketball season is over. We understand and we’ll forgive you.
5. Gouge out your eyeballs.
It’s hard to avoid anything Lin related but our media and social networks are inundated with information about him. So take the final, extreme approach and just remove any visual organs you may have. You might also want to fill your ear canals with cement but that might be taking things too far.
If you’re like me and are tired from the #LINSANITY (why am I hash-tagging on a blog post? UGH THE LIN EFFECT IS SPREADING EVERYWHERE), know that you’re not alone. You’ve got at least me.
[Photo courtesy of BestWeekEver.tv]
