As Ivanka Trump continues to shill Goya products for no benefit other than to 1) assure us we’re in an endless episode of Twin Peaks and 2) potentially try to make Latino voters think that her daddy gives a fuck about a “sect” of people he’s actively tried to wall out of the country since his campaign began before 2016, she’s also seen fit to deliver the Marie Antoinette-esque platitude, “Find Something New.”
This is, of course, a hashtag-based campaign that means little else beyond suggesting what millions of Americans have already known: they need to be searching for “alternative” job outlets for the inevitable moment when their unemployment runs out. Possibly just trying to #findsomethingnew herself, Ivanka wants to appear useful, worthy of being her daddy’s trusted advisor. And so, having never needed to “find something new” in her own right thanks to the perk of congenital wealth, Ivanka has laid bare some cold, hard facts apparently none of us were aware of before she came along: “Now, as a result of Covid, people need to, unfortunately, in some cases learn a completely new skill. But that is also an opportunity to be put on for a new trajectory for themselves and their lives and we want to facilitate that connection back to the workforce and make it as smooth as possible.”
Way to have a Pollyanna outlook on a completely bleak situation. One would have almost preferred Debbie Downer to helm a hashtag to the effect of #WeAreFuckedJustDoDrugsUntilTheWorldEnds. But no, those still reaping the benefits of analog capitalism (for it has yet to be determined how the new twenty-first century version of it will fully take shape) must do all they can to keep it afloat despite the fact that the proverbial “Wizard of Oz” has long ago been exposed behind the curtain to reveal the system is fucked and, obviously, completely rigged in the favor of twats like Ivanka and her entire bloodline.
To boot, she has proven that just because you’re rich and have more time on your hands than other people to “find something new” does not mean you’re more predisposed to signs of intelligence and creativity. Hence, this missed opportunity at coming up with, at the very least, a more intentionally jocular campaign slogan. Even the slight amendment to “Try Something New” could have had the potential to be interpreted as an urging to sow some of your sexual experimentation oats during this time of uncertainty when the reaper lurks at every corner. God knows that’s what people were doing during the plague(s) of the Middle Ages despite the more pronounced presence of the Church.
And though frolicking with strangers of different sexes (and–gasp!–maybe even different races!) at the moment is frowned upon for the sake of social distancing (iterating what millennials were always told anyway about not talking to strangers, i.e. “stranger danger”), considering that the Trump administration has touted that people should live recklessly anyway, such absurd flouting of how to avoid the worst possible effects of a pandemic can just as easily incorporate banging lesser known parties.
So it is that, in these times when one must laugh to keep from crying at any cost, maybe it’s better to imagine the slogan as #TrySomethingNew since many will be forced to watch TV spots advocating for the search of a job in a different field, as though jobs aren’t both nonexistent and/or bullshit in all “sectors.” And no, just because someone might finagle a way to pull some money out of their ass for a certification, doesn’t mean they’re guaranteed anything in the way of employment after putting the investment into learning a new trade or skill. For we can’t all just decide to be a designer shoes salesperson, or a salesperson of just about anything that our bank account can think of subsidizing as a “fun” project that turns out to be lucrative. Because everything is when you’re rich to begin with.
So yes, let us instead either pretend that Ivanka is telling us to find the Sanaa Lathan movie, Something New, or “Try Something New,” whether sexually or in going on an adventure we were previously too afraid or too strapped for time to engage in. One that, who knows, might even lead us straight off a cliff and out of the realm of this Sisyphean nightmare called Capitalist Pigs Still Trying to Make Capitalism Happen. Well, don’t expect anyone to be too eager to put a boulder on their back again just because Ivanka said to.
