The Paper Straw Thing Might Be the Dumbest Own-Goal by a Movement That Specializes in Dumb Own-Goals
It mattered, but in a bad way
Our long national paper straw nightmare is over. This week, President Trump signed an executive order switching the federal government back to plastic straws, with the hope that states and cities will follow suit. I give Trump a lot of shit — in fact, I reintroduced the word “retarded” to my vocabulary just for him — but I think he’s right on this one. So does Jon Stewart, and Jimmy Kimmel called the paper straws “admittedly terrible”, which goes to show: Comedians know that people fucking hate paper straws. If you tell a joke with the premise that paper straws are good, you’re going to lose the crowd faster than if you opened with “Who here thinks our bestiality laws are too strict?”
The straw thing was always stupid. Even the campaign’s backers admitted that it was just a way to get people talking about more important things. “We see straws as a gateway,” one prominent activist told Slate in 2018. “Plastic is so ingrained in our lifestyle and our culture that to ask people to make absolute, grandiose change is unrealistic.” And the weird thing here isn’t that quote — it’s who’s speaking. The “prominent activist” is this guy:
That’s right: The movement’s celebrity spokesperson is Adrian Grenier, better known as Vinny Chase from Entourage. You know, the actor who played an actor and was not entirely convincing in the role. Grenier probably got the spokesperson gig because he played a guy who played Aquaman, though his involvement mostly draws attention to the fact that they couldn’t get the actual, real-life Aquaman: Jason Momoa. I don’t mean to diss Adrian Grenier, he’s a successful actor and his activism seems to be sincere, but a movement that goes “Holy shit — we got that guy from the show about cool entertainment dudes making deals no not Ballers the other one” is arguably signaling a lack of seriousness.