Open Thread: Air Your Grievances

Happy Festivus, everyone! For those not familiar with the “holiday,” Festivus was unleashed into popular culture in 1997 in Season 9, Episode 10 (“The Strike”) of Seinfeld. (N.B. It’s a little crazy to me that an interest in and encyclopedic knowledge of Seinfeld can easily date a person these days.)

So, What is Festivus?

For the uninitiated, Festivus is a secular holiday celebrated on December 23 that serves as an alternative to participating in the pressures and commercialism of Christmas. The fake holiday was “invented” by Frank Costanza and has as its symbol, an unadorned aluminum pole, prized for its “high strength-to-weight ratio,” as well as its lack of distracting decorations, like tinsel.

Included amongst the Festivus festivities are the traditional dinner, followed by the “Airing of Grievances,” during which members of the family innumerate the ways in which they have disappointed them throughout the year, and the Feats of Strength – when the head of the household challenges attendees to a wrestling match, which concludes Festivus only when the head of the household is pinned.

So, dear readers, though HSS won’t be providing a Festivus dinner or invitations to wrestle today, I would like to open the floor for the Airing of Grievances – the best part of Festivus, in my opinion.

I’ll kick it off with a few of my own and invite all of you to let the world know in the comments how it has disappointed you this year. Festivus begins now!

HSS Airing of Grievances

Brooks Brothers & Thom Browne. Nothing against either of you individually, but the break-up, which means the end of the Black Fleece line, is extremely disappointing. It was a great collaboration and the only bright spot that I see in the split, is that I can get the best button-down oxford shirt on the market for one-third of its original price right now.

Follow me on Snapchat! Now, this could be a generational thing, but Oh. My. God. Can everyone please shut up about the fact they’re on Snapchat? I don’t “snap” and never will – seriously, how desperate for approval must one be to share so much with complete strangers? – but if you are compelled to do so, there’s absolutely no need to hit me over the head with it in Every. Single. Instagram. Caption.

People who use internet slang. Hey, guys! Here I am with “the homie” [insert name]/my #squad and just letting you know about my #[anything] goals. So what do I find so egregious about this? Lack of substance. This is the dribble of someone who wants to be involved in a conversation without actually contributing anything of value to it. We’re going to dig deeper into this phenomenon next month.

Now it’s your turn! Air your grievances in the comments!

Thanks for reading and Happy Festivus.

Stylishly Yours,

Brian Sacawa
He Spoke Style