barney the dinosaur must die!

An Open Letter to The President of The United States (or the guy who is in charge of beheadings)

An Open Letter to The President of The United States (or the guy who is in charge of beheadings)

We at S.C.U.M. are delighted that fake news propagators are finally being held accountable. We cheered as Donald Trump was arrested, Alex Jones was sued for $1.5 billion and Fox News settled for $787 million. Now we believe it is time for the mighty fist of law to strike the most insidious beacon of disinformation: Barney The Dinosaur.

In the 1990s, Barney The Dinosaur told an entire generation of children they were special. Thirty years later, these children are creeping towards middle age and finally realising what a crock of horseshit that was. They’re not special. Many of them are, in fact, below average in almost every way — including this author.

That’s why I created the S.C.U.M. (Self-Centered Underachieving Millennials) Foundation: a charity dedicated to assisting the modern Western workforce. Specifically, Millennials who were told they were special, got average grades in school, slacked off in their 20s convinced that they’d eventually “figure it out”, reached their 30s, came to realise that they’re painfully average and won’t be living a life of luxury or adoration, so now must figure out what the literal fuck they are doing.

We appreciate that Barney The Dinosaur was not the sole individual perpetuating these lies. Our parents are also to blame for their unconditional love. However, we believe Barney was the de-facto leader of this psychological operation — the Osama Bin Laden of platitudes if you will.

Are we supposed to believe that a dinosaur watched his entire family die in an infernal fire 65 million years ago, somehow survived an inhospitable planet, got a TV show deal, and now celebrates human individuality? We have reason to believe he’s not even a dinosaur at all! He must face the consequences of his lies.

Simply “cancelling” Barney will not be enough. Many cancelled men in show business have walked back into the limelight and continued their careers with little more than a slap on the wrist. We at S.C.U.M. believe that punishment should be swift, violent and final. Namely — beheading Barney The Dinosaur for his crimes of sycophancy.

I have spoken to hundreds of Millennials across the globe who are now wallowing in their early 30s and wondering where it all went wrong.

“Barney told me I was special, my mother told me I was special, my nannies told me I was special, my boyfriends told me I was special, and my teachers told me I was special (Mom was on the PTA). It wasn’t until I got out into the real world that I realised I wasn’t unique at all. In fact, being told I was special my entire life had turned me into an insufferable cunt! So, I became a social media manager.

— Cassie, aged 29.

“I want that purple piece of shit to come down here and tell me “everything works out in the end” as I watch my wife finalise the divorce!

—Leo, aged 34.

“Barney said I could be whatever I wanted, so I decided to become a screenwriter! Spoiler alert: that didn’t go well! Now all I do is write dumb newsletters!”

–Jacob, aged 31.

I can tell you with 100% certainty that every graphic designer, marketer, barista, middle manager, teacher, production assistant, editor, intern, and wedding photographer believed their life would turn out differently because they were special. They thought they would be top of their field and celebrated for generations. But if we look back, we can see that Barney’s lies set us up for failure from the beginning…

Barney’s insistent that every child was special and could do whatever they put their mind to led us to coast through school with middling grades, except for the (wholly useless) subjects we enjoyed, such as Drama, History or English. Poor grades didn’t matter, though, because higher education had been successfully privatised and accepted anyone with enough money to buy their courses as individualistic as Barney promised us — huzzah! We learnt lessons in “Fine Art”, “Philosophy”, “Business Studies”, and “Acting”, ready to take on the big wide world!

Of course, there were no real jobs in the 2010’s! Not unless you had fifty years of experience at age twenty-one, could afford to be paid in shillings and still have enough energy to work on your side hustle. Alternatively, you could get your wealthy parents to find you an unpaid internship at a successful business and pay for the next 3 - 5 years of your rent.

Those of us with parents who didn’t deem us special enough to pay our bills were forced to work shitty jobs to give us the flexibility to work on what Barney told us made us special. Some of us painted. Others wrote. There were even a few entrepreneurs among us.

But of course, life gets busy. We met new friends, lovers, enemies and bosses. We didn’t have all the time in the world for our art, but it didn’t matter. We were special. It would all work out in the end.

But after a few long years, we looked at our half-finished artworks, our novels and our businesses and thought to ourselves, “Well, fuck me, I’m kind of terrible at this. This is so shamefully average that I’ll never be able to support myself with it. Oh, sweet baby Jesus, I’ve wasted my entire life. What the hell do I do now?”

During that moment of despair, I knew my life’s new purpose would be to kill Barney The Dinosaur. Kill him for what he did to all of us! I was supposed to be special, I’m ordinary — so very, very ordinary! And maybe that’s okay! Maybe we should stop trying to be special and accept that we’re ordinary. We could endeavour to improve without assuming we have some innate skill inside of us. Instead of believing we are inherently special, we could strive to be extraordinary…

I ask you, Mr. President (or the guy in charge of beheadings), when will the dinosaur’s lies end? The answer: never. Not until we finally lop the head off that great purple beast before he corrupts a new generation! Gen-Z has enough to worry about, what with environmental collapse, literal plagues, the rise of fascism, the privatisation of existence, cost of living crises, culture wars, Ai taking their jobs and billionaires buying up all the rental properties! The last thing they need is a giant purple dinosaur telling them they’re special!

We need to stop living in some fantasy land and get serious! The beheading of Barney The Dinosaur is a step in that direction. For full effect, the execution must be broadcast live during the same slot that Barney’s show airs! The children must see life for what it truly is! Cruel and disappointing! They must see! They must see!

Yours in hope & violence,

jacob x