Dear Moms Making Videos In Your Minivans, Just Stop

By now, you’ve probably watched at least one minivan video, recorded by moms with edgy opinions and paisley scarfs. So I guess this is a thing now, and maybe I should just accept it because it’s clearly not going anywhere.

How did this all start? I imagine some mom got annoyed one day because the grocery store cashier didn’t triple-gold-star-free-toilet-paper-for-life her coupons or some shit. So she stomped her yogi butt out to the Odyssey, hopped on Facebook Live, and proceeded to tell all of her friends at once. And her family. And her ex-boyfriends. And those two girls she worked with for a month at Aeropostale back in 2006.

Why bitch to a store manager when you can bitch to everyone you know and your aunt’s childhood neighbor, all at once?

Then a bunch of other moms were suddenly hit with moral outrage over something dumb their teen said in the car on the way to Kohl’s or got bit by the life lesson bug sitting in the Chick-fil-A drive-thru, and they had to let us know.

Right now.

Not by writing it down. No. These were urgent thoughts, and there was no time to scream at autocorrect or figure out commas. This social commentary had to be captured via the art of motion picture!

Then Chewbacca Mom exploded onto the scene, went crazy-viral, and made George Lucas and Hasbro a literal shitton of money. The floodgates opened, and soon enough, every Melissa, Kate, and Tammy saw a path to fame via the suburban version of the sex tape: moms in cars videos.

Now, look, I’m sure we all have super controversial or profound original thoughts we’d like to share with the world. But can we hit the brakes for a minute and acknowledge that these are not the spontaneous bursts of social commentary they’re being presented as?

I mean, please Becky. You’re telling me you wake up two hours earlier than your kids every morning to shower, then blow-dry and curl your hair before you contour the wine bloat out of your face, put on clean clothes, and tie a scarf in a bunch of decorative knots around your neck?

Because none of you look like you just rolled out of bed for elementary school drop-off. We have already established that to be a task performed in your pajamas while wearing sunglasses to hide yesterday’s mascara smudge.

I literally can’t with these car-video moms. They pretend that their diatribe was inspired so swiftly that they had to pull over into their local strip mall parking lot. I’m not dumb. I know the real reason is that parking spot has the most flattering lighting at 2 p.m. on a Sunday when you’re actually recording this shit.

We know the truth: The only spontaneous acts that occur in the front seat of a Toyota Sienna are screaming at that dickhead who cut you off and plucking chin hairs at a red light.

So listen, ladies: Mom-to-mom, can you just cool your damn jets with these scripted speeches on the moral failings of store-bought cookies at your church bake sale? Or how, unlike that other mom you saw today, you are hashtag-blessed with a little angel who doesn’t eat food from the grocery store before you’ve hit the checkout?

You can act all high and mighty. You can plan this shit out weeks in advance and make an appointment to have your face airbrushed up like a spring break T-shirt. You can google “production value” and find out whatever the hell that means to make sure your video has it. But don’t think for a second that we are buying this as “improvised.” I’ve seen Star Wars droids that sound less robotic.

And look, I’m all about sharing your experiences and airing your grievances. (Clearly!) But the blatant commercialization of talking to your friends? Whether or not you end up getting paid, these videos reek to high heaven.

All I’m asking is be real and stop it with the manufactured outrage.

Your front seat is not the confessional from The Real World so stop treating it like one. Can we just go back to doing normal stuff in our cars, like eating fast food and then tossing the wrappers in the nearest dumpster and pretending it didn’t happen?

No?

Fine, go ahead and hop into your RAV4 to tell your iPhone camera about that woman who didn’t like your videos.

She can shove it.