We are all defeated by the garbage in our own way.

November 11, 2016 11:25 AM

Child battling garbage can is a metaphor for 2016. (SLYT)
posted by DirtyOldTown (63 comments total)

And, notably, he keeps getting up and back at it.
posted by knownassociate at 11:30 AM on November 11, 2016 [44 favorites]

The biggest question is Where is he going with that garbage can? Because it doesn't appear to be going to or from the house, which is how they usually move.

Is he taking it for a walk?

Did it blow down the street because of the wind?
posted by leotrotsky at 11:30 AM on November 11, 2016 [5 favorites]

So... the lid is like a bad comb-over?
posted by ElDiabloConQueso at 11:33 AM on November 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

This kid is apparently a student at the Midvale School for the Gifted.

just pull it.
posted by leotrotsky at 11:34 AM on November 11, 2016 [22 favorites]

The deep question: Is 2016 the garbage can or the wind that blows the garbage can? Which is the child truly fighting?
posted by straight at 11:38 AM on November 11, 2016 [7 favorites]

Needs a flaming garbage can to be 2016 imo.
posted by Mothlight at 11:40 AM on November 11, 2016 [26 favorites]

The kid is us, the trash can is 2016 - who is the asshole parent holding the camera instead of helping their kid not get repeatedly knocked to the ground?
posted by bibliowench at 11:42 AM on November 11, 2016 [8 favorites]

I think it's probably a security camera.
posted by ThatCanadianGirl at 11:45 AM on November 11, 2016 [8 favorites]

The kid is us, the trash can is 2016 - who is the asshole parent holding the camera instead of helping their kid not get repeatedly knocked to the ground?

I think it's more likely a mounted security camera. Which means the asshole parent is inside watching it on the computer instead of actually holding the camera.
posted by mudpuppie at 11:46 AM on November 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

Every generation gets the sisyphean rock it deserves.
posted by Capt. Renault at 11:48 AM on November 11, 2016 [23 favorites]

Needs a flaming garbage can to be 2016 imo.

And full of drippy, wet, stinky garbage bags. Maybe some used cat litter.
posted by Rock Steady at 11:49 AM on November 11, 2016

The kid is us, the trash can is 2016 - who is the asshole parent holding the camera instead of helping their kid not get repeatedly knocked to the ground?

Who is the quick to judge but entirely incorrect internet commenter in this metaphor?
posted by paulcole at 11:57 AM on November 11, 2016 [7 favorites]

She represents quick-to-judge but entirely incorrect internet commenters.
posted by straight at 12:00 PM on November 11, 2016 [8 favorites]

The deep question: Is 2016 the garbage can or the wind that blows the garbage can? Which is the child truly fighting?

It's the wind. The garbage can is just the wind's weapon.
posted by maxsparber at 12:01 PM on November 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

I just cried from laughter. A good cry! Sweet!
posted by samthemander at 12:02 PM on November 11, 2016

I want to know who is in the garbage bin that wants to get out so badly.

Also, it's a bin. Not a can. Ignorance of trash containers is what's wrong with this country.
posted by bondcliff at 12:04 PM on November 11, 2016 [4 favorites]

And, notably, he keeps getting up and back at it.

But, aptly, it doesn't occur to him to try doing it a different way.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 12:04 PM on November 11, 2016 [11 favorites]

A group of coworkers had been gathered around my desk while we talked about our health insurance fears and stop and frisk, and I was able to open this and we watched it together, and laughed together. This poor kid has done us all a great service.
posted by phunniemee at 12:12 PM on November 11, 2016 [4 favorites]

Which means the asshole parent is inside watching it on the computer instead of actually holding the camera.
I guess this makes us all the assholes.

Sure, it's a good laugh watching this young lad's Sisyphean efforts, but I hope that you guys also feel some sympathy for him, as well as are inspired by his persistence and perseverance.

I think it's a little silly to be criticizing his inability to "learn". He's a young lad.

Sure I had a good chuckle at the cartoonishness of it all, but I mostly felt sympathy for him, because I was that kid once, just trying to do my job, but I also feel proud and inspired by him, because he's not giving up.

_{sorry to be cranky, but I saw this on reddit a few days ago and like here, there were more people laughing at him and his plight than there were encouraging him. i think we're better than this}
posted by bitteroldman at 12:21 PM on November 11, 2016 [5 favorites]

I think this is only funny because we sympathize with him, bitteroldman. It's recognized pain.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:27 PM on November 11, 2016 [6 favorites]

I saw this the other day and laughed. When I showed it to my partner, she reacted with pity for the kid and told me i was cruel. I replied that she just had no sense of humour. We are now separating... all because of that bin.
posted by greenhornet at 12:37 PM on November 11, 2016 [8 favorites]

The wind is Anger. The garbage bin is Trump; an empty vessel that, bolstered by the whipped up air, keeps flipping it's lid. The boy is all of us. The angled camera shot is a Dutch tilt, a clear sign of foreign influence. The camera is a security camera; an obvious case of the medium being the message.
posted by Kabanos at 12:43 PM on November 11, 2016 [12 favorites]

who is the asshole parent holding the camera instead of helping their kid not get repeatedly knocked to the ground?

Someone who in theory cares about the problem and the affected, and could have easily helped, but somehow decided not to anyway? I'm going to say: roughly 100 million eligible Americans who didn't vote.

Who is the quick to judge but entirely incorrect internet commenter in this metaphor?

Someone who couldn't help even in theory, but who swears that they would totally have handled things better if they were on the scene, despite having only the most indirect and generic understanding of the invisible forces that led up to the visible smack in the face? I'm going to go with: non-Americans.

Let's not get more specific. I couldn't resist internally and now publicly commenting on what a lousy job that kid and parent were doing, despite having half my back yard fence blown to the ground by a horrible windstorm not too long ago, and losing a shed not too long before that. The obvious parallel I'm seeing here is too overblown to name.
posted by roystgnr at 12:46 PM on November 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

"It was one of those days, when it's a minute away from snowing. And there was this electricity in the air. You could almost hear it. And this bin was just ... dancing ... with me. Like a little kid, begging me to play with it. …"
posted by Kabanos at 12:49 PM on November 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

What if the real garbage can is love?
What if the real wind is hope?
What if the true metaphor was inside us all along?
posted by signal at 12:52 PM on November 11, 2016 [8 favorites]

And now I've learned about Robert Vaughn and Leonard Cohen. I thought maybe it would be fair to limit the metaphor target here to "the most recent 2016 news", but apparently we don't get a long enough hiatus for that.

Plus, I'm sick, and my ability to construct strained and ridiculous metaphors is now far past its limit, so let's just let 'er rip!

The garbage can is cancer.

The wind is the P versus NP problem.

The boy is contractualist deontological theory.

The parent is a plate of beans.

The driveway is the heat death of the universe.

The grass field across the street is a golf course, I hope. Nobody would be dickish enough to make a park that big without a playground, right?

The YouTube comments are a garbage can.

The Metafilter comments are one of those garbage cans that looks fancy, with the motorized lid and motion sensor, but then you actually try to pull the trash bag out you discover the flange holding up the lid sticks out on the inside and is tearing into the bag unless you pull real slow while cursing incompetent mechanical engineers.

The lines of tar in the cracked road asphalt are the half-assed patchwork holding together human civilization, both metaphorically and literally.

The tree right between the sidewalk and curb is some jackass who didn't stop to think about how much damage those roots will do in ten or twenty years.

The lawn is Tony Shalhoub.

The shadow in the lower left hand corner is bugging the hell out of me. What is it? I don't mean in any metaphorical sense, I mean literally, what casts a shadow that looks like an abstract artist's reinterpretation of a milk crate?

The car is a sedan.

This comment is a mistake.
posted by roystgnr at 1:13 PM on November 11, 2016 [42 favorites]

Is 2016 the garbage can or the wind that blows the garbage can? Which is the child truly fighting?

this year's Nobel laureate for literature has some insight here.
posted by philip-random at 1:27 PM on November 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

who is the asshole parent holding the camera instead of helping their kid not get repeatedly knocked to the ground?

I think it's more likely a mounted security camera. Which means the asshole parent is inside watching it on the computer instead of actually holding the camera.

Uh... you guys know they have cameras now that are both motion sensing and recorded, such that it's equally likely someone just found this footage hours later? No reason to posit an "asshole parent" who sat inside snickering rather than helping this kid.
posted by Joey Buttafoucault at 1:36 PM on November 11, 2016 [4 favorites]

Also, dear god talk about over-interpreting a metaphor. No one in here better suggest any sense in which this kid "is a viking" or I swear I'm going to lose my shit.
posted by Joey Buttafoucault at 1:37 PM on November 11, 2016

"In a way, each of us has an Garbage Can to face. For some, shyness might be their Garbage Can. For others, a lack of education might be their Garbage Can..."
posted by drezdn at 1:41 PM on November 11, 2016 [4 favorites]

Meanwhile, in a metaphor for America...
posted by grippycat at 1:43 PM on November 11, 2016 [4 favorites]

My first thought was that he looks like he has stolen it and is now completely failing the getaway.
posted by Is your name not Bruce, then? at 1:45 PM on November 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'm impressed at that kid's chill. I would have started kicking it after the second or third time.
posted by drezdn at 1:46 PM on November 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

I do find myself wondering at the voyeurism and paranoia that has someone going over the recorded video of their security cameras regularly, however.

Maybe they just looked out the window and wondered if their video camera was capturing it. The voyeuristic, paranoid, commons-despoiling rudeness was all in the act of pointing the camera at the public street when it was set up.

Anyway, when it comes to metaphorically suggestive videos that are making the rounds, I trust you've all seen the planet earth snake chase.
posted by sfenders at 1:51 PM on November 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

Aw, go easy on the kid. He's just drunk.
posted by Sys Rq at 1:58 PM on November 11, 2016

Keep on keepin' on, kid. It's the best we can do.
posted by Loudmax at 1:59 PM on November 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

This is just to say

I have beaten
the boy
that was on
the sidewalks

and for whom
you were probably
saving
for college

Forgive me
he was injudicious
so windy
and so cold
posted by Kabanos at 2:08 PM on November 11, 2016 [21 favorites]

This kid plays computer games. In fact I think this whole scene could be adapted to a computer game. Think about how many games encourage persistence. You don't stop playing because you fell in the lava (again).
posted by adept256 at 2:08 PM on November 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

Garbage Bin syndrome (GBS) is a serious ailment and not something that should be mocked! Check out his GoFundMe page to raise money for GBS awareness.
posted by blue_beetle at 3:00 PM on November 11, 2016

I'll bet that's not his house. The wind may have blown the can a half-block, and he's not coming up the driveway. And since it's AFV, this could be many years old.
posted by Miss Cellania at 3:01 PM on November 11, 2016

Not quite the same thing, but I've been thinking a lot about this tweet: "Trash fire thread upgraded to train fire. Mobile, propelled by engine, goes on forever." She wasn't writing about 2016 in particular (actually I'm not sure what she was responding to), but I come back to that mental image frequently in reference to this year.
posted by Alterscape at 3:33 PM on November 11, 2016

Yeah, I think after the bin knocked me over, I would've gotten back up, kicked it a few times and then went back home to tell my parents "nope, sorry, I couldn't find it."

But good for this kid.

(Yes, I laughed but it was with empathy. I, too, have found myself in situations like that where I'm just surprised that things keep going badly no matter what I do.)
posted by darksong at 3:33 PM on November 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

Maybe he should fill the garbage bin with beans.
posted by Diskeater at 4:15 PM on November 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

Just the other day I was reflecting that English needs a word for when you laugh at somebody but from empathy, because you're laughing at the self you see in their misfortune. Like when a kid gets their head stuck in a weird place. "Schadenfreude-aber-positiv" or something.
posted by traveler_ at 4:19 PM on November 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, thrice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce, the third time as a tragi-farcical dumpster fire which rolls off a cliff into a lake of sewage. Which then also catches fire.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 4:35 PM on November 11, 2016 [4 favorites]

That kid isn't a viking. He's a True Scotsman.


Noo he's nae!
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 4:39 PM on November 11, 2016

No one in here better suggest any sense in which this kid "is a viking" or I swear I'm going to lose my shit.

Don't be absurd. The kid is clearly akin to a plum floating in perfume served in a man's hat.
posted by nubs at 6:32 PM on November 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

Ah, Midwestern wind, how I miss you. As a skinny child I was once literally blown off my feet while wearing a too-large hoodie one October morning.

Had I seen this kid, I would have helped, but only after the falling over incident. During the head bop portion, I would have just laughed sympathetically in rememberence of my own attempts at big-kid chores. Rakes and shovels were the bane of my gangly existence. Just always managed to trip over them or not pay attention to the haft and hit something (or someone).
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 6:33 PM on November 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

"In a way, each of us has an Garbage Can to face. For some, shyness might be their Garbage Can. For others, a lack of education might be their Garbage Can..."

It's pretty sad times when a racist stereotype from an 80s movie seems like he would probably make a better president. Firstly, he specifically said he didn't want to use his position of power for sexual gain, and secondly, knows the word plethora. I mean, that pretty much covers the improvements, but still.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 6:52 PM on November 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

What if the real garbage can is love?
What if the real wind is hope?
What if the true metaphor was inside us all along?

The sidewalk is the fury road.
posted by boilermonster at 9:47 PM on November 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

This video is not real but was funded by Soros to elicit sympathy for children.

The subtext of an empty garbage bin is anti-consumerist and/or environmentalist propaganda. The video has been produced in a wind power facility to subconsciously promote green energy sources. Note the pathetic, featureless attempt to recreate a suburban setting. Real suburbs are much more dynamic.

The child has difficulty because he is individual and autonomous; the subtext is that global collectivism is smooth sailing.

Note carefully that material has been cut about halfway through. This is where Kubrick ran onto the set and chastised the child for failing to suitably channel Sisyphus. (The elites, of course, do not actually have sympathy for children, but need to promote a base level of population maintenance.)

The video is tilted to obscure the guide wires that manipulate the bin at crucial points. That wind is of insufficient force to throw a garbage bin such a distance.
posted by sylvanshine at 9:57 PM on November 11, 2016

Also gravity is wrong, kid bounces up too quickly. This was obviously recorded on a soundstage on Mars.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 10:01 PM on November 11, 2016 [4 favorites]

Trump is the guy in the next frame who is happily walking backwards, PULLING the garbage can in the direction that the win doesn't catch the lid. Rules aren't working for you, make new rules.
posted by MattD at 7:02 AM on November 12, 2016

Bernie is the guy also walking backward, pulling the garbage can in the sensible way, and Hillary is lying in wait to trip him anyway.
posted by MattD at 7:03 AM on November 12, 2016

And then turn the garbage can around and start to push purposefully into the wind, until...
posted by MattD at 7:03 AM on November 12, 2016

This kid is a victim of the education system. He should, by now, know enough about physics, or have enough respect for his own mind, to stop, realize he has a problem with a simple solution. Instead, he is victimized by both nature, and a large plastic pail, posing as a sail. The ass filmed him, instead of instructing him. The metaphor is the misuse of technology. The ass should have used eyes, to see, feet to walk, voice to call out, and compassion to teach.
posted by Oyéah at 8:29 AM on November 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

The ass filmed him, instead of instructing him.

Stationary security cameras don't make great teachers.
posted by Sys Rq at 8:31 AM on November 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

hippybear: "I do find myself wondering at the voyeurism and paranoia that has someone going over the recorded video of their security cameras regularly, however."

Looks like the kind of neighbourhood where he was the only person to walk down the sidewalk all day.
posted by Mitheral at 8:45 AM on November 12, 2016

despite having only the most indirect and generic understanding of the invisible forces that led up to the visible smack in the face?

Hey, we have wind in Europe too. It was invented by an Irish guy, even.
posted by effbot at 10:15 AM on November 12, 2016

The kid totally posted it himself.
posted by gottabefunky at 10:42 AM on November 12, 2016

Maybe the real garbage bin is the friends we made along the way.
posted by ZaphodB at 12:23 PM on November 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

This was my Wednesday last week. Except that there was a REASON I wanted it done that way; (metaphorically) turning the can around wouldn't have done it. Which is the worst, realizing you LOOK stupid to all the smug onlookers who don't know the whole story. Sometimes easiest isn't best.

But I eventually got what I wanted, which is what matters.
posted by ctmf at 3:47 PM on November 12, 2016

In Trumpian America, garbage throws YOU to the curb!
posted by Kabanos at 6:10 PM on November 12, 2016