If you made the mistake of logging into Twitter after a long weekend, you would have been confronted by yet another shoutfest over the bitter 2016 Democratic primary. Hillary Clinton, in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter to promote the new documentary about her life, denounced Bernie Sanders, saying that he "got nothing done" and blamed "the culture around him" for "relentless attacks on lots of his competitors, particularly the women." This was a lobbed grenade guaranteed to result in online venom both from Sanders supporters and from Hillary heads who dislike the Vermont Senator.
But you don't actually need to tune into social media to watch Twitter's most popular accounts once again engulf the platform in flames. Instead, you can look at this image of a puppy in a comfy-looking knit hood:
Nanette Burstein, the documentary's director, told THR that she "didn't want to re-litigate 2016," which is why she didn't seek to interview Sanders or Donald Trump. While her subject evidently doesn't share that view—Clinton apparently wants to litigate 2016 over and over and over and over—it's a good idea! Rather than re-litigating 2016 in your personal Twitter feed, do something else with your time, like watching this soothing video compilation of repetitive mechanical processes:
Is it unfair of Clinton to refuse to say whether she would support Sanders if he won the nomination, as he did when she won it in 2016? Or is it actually unfair that Sanders is allowed to run for the nomination at all since he isn't even technically a Democrat?? Who cares? This coati doesn't, he's too busy trying to get a drink:
But wait, does this mean that Clinton has to just keep quiet about the sexism she endured for decades, and which was at least partially to blame for her defeat? And isn't that demand for silence itself pretty damn sexist? The important thing to consider here is that those questions will not be settled, or even effectively discussed, on a platform where everyone is competing for the dopamine microhits of engagement and likes. What’s more important to consider is this little frog in a teacup:
Sure, you could engage in an argument about who is actually to blame for nasty attacks leveled by Sanders supporters against their opponents and whether this constitutes proof of sexism. You could even accuse Clinton supporters of inventing the whole narrative about how they get attacked and demand that they provide evidence. But as Marie Kondo would say, that is not likely to spark joy. Here is Kondo demonstrating how to fold clothes, a much more useful skill than starting online flame wars:
Perhaps you don't even need Twitter to get angry. Maybe you have internalized the debate over Democratic politics to such a degree that in your head you are playing out arguments and you find yourself outraged that establishment figures like Clinton preach unity right up until the moment it seems they will lose, and then all of a sudden they are willing to fracture the party and even contribute to a Trump victory, all to destroy the prospects of actual leftism, because they are cowards and traitors who are just tools of the capitalist oppressors—in that case, you need this photo of a cat in a box more than anything:
Someday all of this will be forgotten.
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