Elon Musk Does Thing, World Spends 72 Hours Pretending To Be Surprised

EARTH — Following the latest development from Elon Musk, the global media ecosystem entered its 848th consecutive cycle of structured outrage, a ritual analysts now describe as "a form of clock." The cycle proceeds as follows: initial shock; hot takes; counter-hot takes; the contrarian piece headlined "Actually, this is fine"; congressional tweets; a meme format; an op-ed from someone who has never met Elon Musk explaining his childhood; and collective exhaustion by hour 73. "I genuinely cannot believe this," said one pundit who has said this 847 times. "This time feels different." It was not different. Sociologists note the cycle runs on a precise 72-hour clock regardless of what the thing was. In three of the last eleven cycles, no one remembered what the original thing was by the time the op-eds ran.