Sorry, This Image Is Cursed

By now, you all should have figured out that the world has rapidly begun its descent into dystopia. Give it three to four more months and life will be just like Mad Max: Fury Road—battling in the grocery aisles for water, rocking unnecessarily dark eye makeup, only traveling in biker gangs. But one of the clearest signs that our world is becoming more dystopic every day is the wild things people and organizations are doing to “show support” to their fellow humans in the midst of this difficult time.

Out of all of the bizarrely empty gestures I’ve seen over the past two months, one of the most haunting has to be this overhead photograph of a bunch of Fairfax County police officers’ personal cars and police squad cars spelling out the word “HOPE.”

As usual, I have many questions. How much time did it take these officers to arrange their cars this way and then take the photo? And also, how did they take the photo? Is their police station on the top floor of a 10 story building? Do they realize that regular people on the ground can’t actually tell that the cars are spelling out any words at all? But most of all, is this really the best possible way that these law enforcement officers could think of to reassure their community during this uncertain time Maybe, I don’t know, hand out some face masks instead?

The image was originally shared to the Fairfax County Police Station’s Facebook page, which makes sense. An image this haunted and soulless could only really have originated from Facebook, the cesspool from which all truly awful internet things are born. (You’re welcome for not hyperlinking to the Facebook post directly, I wouldn’t make you suffer like that.)

Also, the idea of cops providing…. hope? As a Black person in the United States, I would beg to differ.