Government social media accounts being funny and/or relatable: fun, harmless sign of the times, or evidence of a free fall into dystopia? This was, at one point, something I pondered. Then, I realized that there’s enough horror in this world that I don’t have the mental real estate to consider the ramifications of the FBI doing memes. I set my judgment adrift, like jettisoning a predatory alien life-form in an escape pod, and decided this was going to be something that to me, just existed.
Everything has become approximately .1 percent better since then, so why not join me and take the fact that we live in a time where OSHA is using Kevin Hart clips for engagement as a fascinating curiosity?
The TSA
The TSA has access to one particular, boundless resource when it comes to comedy: human stupidity. Seeing the unimaginably cockamamie plans of amateur smugglers is, in fact, something I have interest in. Of course, there’s a certain level of dread that arises when you start to see how many people are trying to get weird knives onto planes, but that’s a thought that you just have to nip in the bud. For the tweet above: I’m a simple man. I realize that I’m in a historical window where a government agency does fart jokes, I enjoy it.
OSHA
As far as government agencies, OSHA is a fairly easy one to stomach, which makes their forays into online comedy fairly pleasant. They, as far as I know, have never orchestrated any faulty-ladder based assassination schemes of fledgling democracies in the Congo, for example. Knowing that, if they want to repurpose a Kevin Hart meme to demonstrate the importance of whistleblowing safety issues, I more than welcome it. Not to mention that calling out bosses and greedy corporations is the only form of narcing that’s punk. A whistleblower is just a cool snitch!
U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission
The Consumer Product Safety Commission is another rare government agency that seems to still have the continued existence of the common man as a prime directive. I also assume that it’s one of the most stressful regulatory jobs available, if only because of the emergence of Temu. A bit of humor is also much appreciated when most every post is indicating an item in your house that’s a threat to life and limb. This delightful little image featuring a possessed teddy bear is better than half of horror movies that end up just being about depression, and also seems to be targeted directly at the people who think buying discount dropshipped space heaters is a solid idea.
New Jersey
Twitter/@NJGov
You don’t even need to get past the banner to reach a point where a hat needs to be tipped. Sure, Baby Yoda (which there’s about as much chance of me calling Grogu as there is calling Twitter “X”) is a little dated at this point. The owning up to stereotypes by slapping a series of mamma-mia hands in your banner, though? You have to respect it. Plus, if there’s a state that’s required to have a sense of humor about itself online, New Jersey is it. You don’t want this thing run by one of those guys who turns so red they look like a fire hydrant wearing a neck chain any time you say Newark Airport sucks.
Sweden (When They Went Full Chaos)
Don’t bother heading over to Sweden’s current Twitter account, as nowadays it’s your standard international Twitter, mostly posting photos of pastries and successful Swedish scientists. Instead, I call back to a beautiful, chaotic experiment they underwent, in which they allowed random Swedes to run the official account for a day each. After all, the lifeblood of a country is its residents, not its cream puffs. I’ll take an expression of Scandinavian utility and morbidity in equal part any day over the guy who invented the ice cube or whatever. Sadly, thanks to the new Twitter operating procedure, the tweets from that time are all lost to the void, but screenshots of this glorious mess live on.
The Republic of Kiribati
In sad news, it’s been revealed that the reckless abandon of the Republic of Kiribati’s Twitter account was not official. But if the goal was to raise awareness of the existence of Kiribati, this unofficial account should be deputized as such. Because today is the first time I’ve both said and typed the word “Kiribati,” an island nation in Micronesia. It was at least orchestrated by someone with heritage linking them to Kiribati, and not some schmuck commandeering an island country in order to pad their LinkedIn.
Let them cook, I say! Let them cook whatever is a delicacy in Kiribati, something I am now interested in!