Reason Not to Kill Yourself Today, No. 6: This Child is Probably the Future
I tried to roll my eyes at this unnecessariness, but they were way too wide open. This kid is so good, so good in so many ways. There's the way he gets wholly into every hip-thrust and gun-finger-shake. There's the way he wears girl-clothes like it's no thing, which it isn't. There's the way he…
Whenever I go to see my world’s best friend, who lives in Montreal, it’s because I am sad and it’s nice to be sad around him. Yes, I’m selfish, but that’s the opposite of what this column is about, so you just never mind. Thing is, I went a week ago, and one of the first things he did was take his laptop out of my twittering hands and play me this video. It’s of a miniature human from South Korea doing every single move to the 2008 K-pop hit “Nobody.”
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kyJTVJFUIY&w=575&h=390%5D
I tried to roll my eyes at this unnecessariness, but they were way too wide open. This kid is so good, so good in so many ways. There’s the way he gets wholly into every hip-thrust and gun-finger-shake. There’s the way he wears girl-clothes like it’s no thing, which it isn’t. There’s the way he loves every second and every half-second of this performance, except it’s not a performance, because there’s no way he sees the video camera. Nothing is conscious; look at the way his little spaghetti straps fall down (awwwwww!) and he doesn’t even stop to care. This is something so pure and unprecocious and completely joy-taking that when I watched it I forgot myself, too.
There is, of course, some chance this shiny tiny star is not a boy, i.e., best-ever argument for biologically determined sexuality, after all. (S)he could be a girl with a really good boy’s haircut. It doesn’t matter, and that’s what makes this video so holy-worthy of being viral. How is it not, yet?! Americans who lose their god-fearing minds if Shiloh Jolie-Pitt has a boy-cut, or when Jenna Lyons of J-Crew paints her son’s nails pink should watch it only to remember what the fuck a child is.
(And don’t you want to live to see this small miracle get grown? And don’t you want to learn that shimmy trick?)
Other thing is, the Western world is ending—I mean, probably—because we can’t handle our finances and all the wrong people are having children. Meanwhile, some Bengal Tiger Mom is raising the leader of the free world. China’s going to beat the world sooner or later, if you believe such things as “economists,” and that’s fine with me, promise, if they bring their little friend from South Korea along for the win. I’m saying, yeah, I could listen to K-pop as terrible as this if it means dancing as beautifully as this, too. I really think I could. 
