All work and no play got you down? Have you been too tired to go white water rafting this year or ever? Is smelling smoke from your neighbor’s cookout as you numb yourself with Netflix the closest you’ve been to a barbeque? Listen, you don’t have to justify yourself. The only thing more excruciating than the thigh chafing it brings is the lurking anxiety that you are squandering your summer.
Seeing your friends post about their picturesque beach days while you are in a prison of your own creation can be a drag. Here are five shows to help you forget that you are sad recluse while everyone else is seizing the day because not everyone can afford a sixty dollar unicorn float from Urban Outfitters, Lacy.
Stranger Things
This coming of age sci-fi romp will take you back to a time when you could actually enjoy summer. A mix of Stand by Me, The Thing, and The Goonies, Stranger Things captures the tone of the 80’s perfectly. Right down to the denial. So while Gang is fighting mysterious, otherworldly powers in lieu of the AIDS epidemic, you can immerse yourself in the problems of prepubescent children instead of dealing with your own shit.
Veronica Mars
California gets sun all year round. People in California don’t have to worry about soaking up every second of slightly more tolerable weather. At least, that’s what you can tell yourself as you rewatch Veronica Mars. Set in the perpetually sunny California, you will be so absorbed in this sultry film noir, you will barely have time to care about your vitamin D deficiency.
The quick-witted narration will keep you completely absorbed in what is really, at its core, a teen drama. Plus, it being set in the early aughts will give you a great sense of superiority. As these naive, dopes explore the sleuthing powers of “the ‘net,” you can look on smugly, secure in the knowledge that soon the housing bubble will burst, and they too will be slaves to capitalism.
Chernobyl
When your FOMO has reached its peak, HBO’s Chernobyl has got your back. It is a great reminder that nothing matters and everyone is going to die.
Grey’s Anatomy
It has 37 seasons for a reason. When you are too exhausted to feel your own feelings, Meredith is there for you. When Gabe goes on another white water rafting trip, and captions his pictures “sucking the marrow from life,” Christina is there for you. Christina will help you remind Gabe that you need to be able to afford to buy the chicken before you can suck any marrow. That not everyone can, “love what they do and do what they love,” Gabe. And when you are imagining the summer fling you could have, if you just had the energy to go outside, the cast of Grey’s is there for you, having approximately 2.5 flings an episode.
Queer Eye
The perfect scoop of ice cream, with pearlescent sprinkles adding that pop of color to the idyllic photo. Lacy, smiling, with the succulent vanilla droplets running over her perfect manicure. Her nails turned out just so, to highlight how great she is at self-care. Portrait mode, obvi.
You look down at the phone, resting on your tanless legs, it does not have portrait mode. You desperately need the fab five. Each episode this tribe of self-actualized, perfectly coiffed queer men enter into some shlub’s house that is way worse off than you. You don’t live in a broken trailer behind a summer camp. And even if you did at least you wash your hair.
By the second episode, you will realize Karamo is manufacturing these heartwarming scenes in a way that barely lets you suspend your disbelief, but by then it’s too late. You have become addicted to this emotional porn. You’re crying like you haven’t in years. In a way that you will later convince yourself is cathartic. Suck it, Lacy, I just had a breakthrough. How’s that for self-care? Enjoy your overpriced ice cream.