So many times in our day-to-day life, we find ourselves grasping for the best way to properly explain something. “You’ve never seen Upstream Color?” we’ll say, to pick a random example of something we should all see and talk about. “No,” replies your co-worker, probably while wearing an “I hate great movies” T-shirt. “What’s it like?” And then we begin the ordeal. “It’s like…” we start, searching our memory palace for the most fitting simile or metaphor or allegorical experience, depending on how obnoxious we want to get with this exercise. Often we’ll simply throw up our hands and shrug, because trying to describe something well is admittedly not always easy.
Thankfully, there’s now the ideal image to address our ongoing state of near-perpetual ennui in the face of endless cultural detritus and overpowering crush of news, entertainment, politics, and general sensory overload that defines the modern condition. It’s Nicolas Cage, from Face/Off, throwing up his hands and shrugging, over and over, for an hour straight. It’s a fitting response to—and we’re just guesstimating, here—roughly 99 percent of the situations one encounters in everyday life. It’s a superb and eternally reusable tool. Even the shrugging emoji is throwing up its hands and saying, “You know what? That’s better. Use that instead from now on.” Nic Cage, once again proving himself the most versatile of all actors.
