Happy Thanksgiving from The A.V. Club
President Donald Trump is pardoning turkeys in the same week that a Backstreet Boy has been accused of rape and the co-founder of Pixar and a once-beloved journalistic icon accused of sexual harassment, and all we can do at this point is make jokes about it on Twitter, which isn’t even all that fun anymore. And it doesn’t seem like the parade of disappointment that’s marched through the year like so many deflated balloons is going to stop anytime soon. The moment of hope us godless liberals felt after the first round of Mueller indictments turned out to be vanishingly brief, and the flood of sexual misconduct allegations that’s reduced each of your humble A.V. Club news correspondents to exhausted, emotionally broken shells of people at various points over the past couple of months doesn’t seem to be receding any time soon.
Yes, 2017 saw all of our laments about how much 2016 sucked and decided to teach us a little lesson in gratitude by making 2017 exponentially worse. Which brings us to Thanksgiving, the reason you’re reading this right now and not a story about how Tom Hanks or whoever is actually an awful person. The day of rest, culturally sanctioned stress eating, and MST3K reruns provided by this particular holiday are needed more than ever this year, presumably for you as much as they are for us.
There have been some big transitions on The A.V. Club this year, and we’re incredibly grateful for those of you who are riding them out with us and are continuing to maintain a thoughtful, supportive, funny, vibrant community of commenters despite it all. It’s been a real learning experience. And perhaps that’s what there is to be thankful for in this unrelenting sewage tornado of a year—the opportunity to learn. To learn what we’re made of, and what others are made of. Who has real strength of character, and who’s going to write some half-assed non-apology when their (or their buddy’s) true faces are revealed. What’s worth fighting for, and what’s no longer worth defending. How to be vulnerable and make mistakes and really listen to one another.
Although these lessons have been difficult, we’re grateful to have learned them. We look forward to learning even more over the course of the year to come, which will either be amazing or the literal end of the world. Thank you for having our backs, dear readers. Happy Thanksgiving to you all, and we’ll see you back here tomorrow.