What's in a Dame

Keep Us far away from us

This Is Us stars Sterling K. Brown. Or so the columnist is told.
This Is Us stars Sterling K. Brown. Or so the columnist is told.

I call this meeting of the TFT society to order!

TFT: Tear-Free Tuesdays!

We're the few, the proud and the smiling -- we are the people who are not spending our Tuesday nights clinging to boxes of tissue and sniveling through NBC's sob story This Is Us.

Indeed we are a small population. Last week, the season premiere of This Is Us dominated the Tuesday ratings, opening its second season with its highest-rated episode. Some 12.64 million viewers tuned in.

And all 12.64 million folks must be my social media friends too.

"If you are not watching this show you are missing out on some amazing TV! #thisisus."

"This show makes me feel everything. #ThisIsUs."

"#thisisus. First time I have watched. A fan now."

"Ready, set, bawl!! #ThisIsUs"

"No one call me! #thisisus #lovethisshow #sorryifyoudontgetit." An hour and four minutes later, the same fan would write "I wasn't prepared #thisisus" with a teary face emoji.

And, no I just don't get it. Granted, I've never watched the show. But this is what I've been able to put together (possible spoiler alert, or total inaccuracy alert): There's like, a family or something. And there are triplets, well kinda. There were three babies, but maybe one died, and so the white family adopted the black baby who was left at the firehouse and grew up to be that guy who played Christoper Darden in that American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson." And their mom is singer Mandy Moore, who might be younger than all of them, but behold the magic of flashbacks. And now some guy, maybe the dad or something, named Jack, is dead, but we don't totally, completely 100 percent know the cause. Maybe alcohol and/or fire. Or whatever. I'm not sure.

All I know is that it makes people bawl buckets week after week.

Therefore, I know that when it comes to This Is Us, this is not for me.

If I've ever come off as even a bit tough in this space, please know that it's a total smokescreen. Admittedly, I'm such a sap. I ugly-weep at everything -- like that Amazon commercial with the widdle baby and the forgotten dog who -- whimper -- wears the lion mane bought with free two-day Prime shipping and finally feels included. Like videos of abandoned goats who get adopted and now live together and frolic happily, sniffffff, wearing sweet little sweaters, waaaaaaah!

I can't handle a show with fine acting, good scripts and issues such as race, weight, addiction, loss and family dynamics at its core. I already get The Feels enough in real life. I turn to TV not to embrace them but to escape from them.

And I'm not the only one. I asked friends on Facebook: "Who does not watch This Is Us? In other words, where my happy people at? #notears" and was pleasantly surprised at how many people could identify.

"I'm all for a good cry, but not going to ask for it! So no!"

"Between ... the tragedy of what's happening in Puerto Rico, the division in this country and just life in general, I shed more than enough tears."

"People just have to understand that if the tv show is moving, or if a movie focuses on a pet that either died, or will die, or is even touching ... or any Disney movie past like 2010 ... This girl is out!"

Still millions of others see the release of This Is Us as This Is Therapy.

"My living room. Is flooded. In tears. #thisisus."

"#thisisus I'm dying a little bit right now ..."

"Oh my. I think I'll go cry myself to sleep now. #thisisus"

Not me. Not tonight on Tear-Free Tuesdays! I'm going to watch something silly and laugh myself to sleep. Or I'm going to drink myself to sleep.

A friend proposed this pastime for TFT: While reading our social media feeds, "We should do a drinking game. 1 drink every time someone posts the words: tears, completely broken, no words."

Can't even? Email:

jchristman@arkansasonline.com

Style on 10/03/2017

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