I was 10 years old when I learned what a “prostitution ring” was, because the governor of our great city at the time, Eliot Spitzer, had patronized one, and it was in the news. I’ve been here for Rudy Giuliani’s full character arc from “America’s mayor” during 9/11 to whatever the hell he is now; watched former Governor Andrew Cuomo’s two-for-one sexual harassment allegations and covering-up-COVID-nursing-home-deaths scandal unfold from my couch during lockdown. I’d completely forgotten about mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner sexting a 15-year-old girl until I started writing this article, because that’s how completely deranged New York City’s politicians are, how low the bar.
So I wouldn’t say I was feeling surprise so much as resignation when the news broke last night that Mayor Eric Adams had been indicted on federal charges. And oh, yeah — I was fucking delighted. Adams has actively exacerbated homelessness in New York City. He’s engaged in and stoked racist rhetoric toward migrants and cracked down on student protests, all while allegedly misallocating contracts, making their lives harder — that is to say, he is both cruel and incompetent. He’s increased policing, which has obviously disproportionately targeted Black and Brown people. For Christ’s sake, he tried to cut the library budget. Goodbye (hopefully). Good riddance.
From what I’m hearing — both by word-of-mouth and, like, literally hearing — other New Yorkers might be feeling similarly. It’s fitting that Adams was attending a United Nations reception at the Metropolitan Museum of Art when the charges dropped, because these memes, man. They are art.
Representation is important, and as a certified hater, I’m glad to see us out in full force. It’s not always easy in New York, no thanks to a certain mayor. We deserve a little hate session, as a treat.
One native New Yorker in particular has been going at it: TV personality Desus Nice.
“did eric adams like, personally wrong desus?” I texted my friend Minh.
“he’s wronged everyone,” Minh replied.
Fair point. Still, the comedian has been on a real heater since about 9pm last night. If his X posts are any indication, he fell asleep at around the four-hour mark of hating, and then immediately resumed hating when he woke up at around noon today. An inspiration to us all.
A vast number of these memes specifically target Adams’s mayoral record. I approve; speaking as a critic, our hating must be couched in tangible evidence, such as his failure to improve — or even admit to — horrific conditions in the Rikers Island jail.
And let’s not forget his attempt to defund public libraries:
There are those, of course, who are team Adams.
The humans of New York aren’t the only ones rejoicing. The rats — whom he’s waged a (losing) war against and whom he personally hates, as he told us in one of his many bizarre press conferences — are also celebrating in the streets.
But let’s be, as they say, so for real for a second, yeah? I’ll say it again, with a different undertone: We deserve this. Eric Adams isn’t just some guy who says goofy shit every once in a while. He is still, at the time of publishing, the goddamn mayor of New York City. We did that.
So let’s have our fun, but let’s not forget the real prize here: having a mayor who isn’t a fucking clown. Elections are coming up, and I don’t want to hear that New York always goes blue anyway, etc., because there are shades of blue (we know this as an art publication), and Adams is living proof that you can be a Democrat and a piece of shit at the same time. He contains multitudes, as Walt Whitman, bard of New York, might put it. If there’s one takeaway from this whole humiliating debacle, it’s not that New Yorkers are funny, because that’s known. It’s that local elections matter.
Tuesday, November 5: Mark your calendars. Because I better not be writing another one of these posts in a year.
