I remember a certain prepositional phrase growing up in New York that was used as a catch-all to poke fun at patently absurd attempts by people to be discrete. It was meant to point out the insincerity of those attempts as well as their inappropriateness in public settings. Hopefully, it would also make the perpetrator think twice. Here’s an example.
“You’re going to dump Trevor in the middle of the Memorial Day barbecue with the whole family around, and you think no one will notice? Why don’t you just do it in Macy’s window?”
The suggestion of doing something “in Macy’s window” carried with it the opprobrium of the larger group (e.g., family, friends) and the implication that not only was the act inappropriate but contrived. Dumping Trevor at the barbecue and thinking that no one would notice could even be cruel. You might as well do it in Macy’s window for the ultimate humiliation.
However, a certain level of shame has to exist for the phrase to make sense and change behavior. Without it, you’ll get a blank stare and maybe a question or two about online shopping and the Thanksgiving Day parade. That’s because we live in an age of the “un-private,” where thoughts, feelings, and desires are put on display constantly. This world includes the usual suspects like social media, where anything goes, and the sexualization of nearly everything, from libraries and schools to parades.
Enter Nick Rekieta. Nick is an attorney in Minnesota and popular YouTuber. I came across him early in 2018 when he reviewed the class action lawsuit against Google by James Damore, the software engineer who sued Google for discrimination and harassment. The case fascinated me for a number of reasons, not the least of which was that I was teaching a business ethics course at the time.
I found Nick’s analysis insightful, informed, and entertaining, since he wasn’t dissecting a legal complaint as much as teaching a labor law course. He also indulged in fine whiskeys as he did his analysis, explaining each one in nearly as much detail as the complaint. I was even persuaded to try various whiskeys based on what he showcased in the videos.
Eventually, I finished the Damore case and moved onto other things. Years later, Nick appeared on my feed again. I clicked on the video but found him in a very different state. He looked disheveled and drunk. He slurred his speech. Then, just this week he was arrested for first degree possession of drugs with a firearm and child endangerment. He has five kids. He is also allegedly involved with another YouTuber’s wife.
Here’s what saddens me most about the case. Nick’s struggle with addiction and his unraveling have taken place on social media. It’s even worse than Macy’s window because of the reach of his channel and his popularity as a legal commentator. The public display of his fall will never go away since things on the internet last forever. So, too, it seems, the number of people who want to rub his nose in the mess he has created.
Nick’s fall may require an equally humiliating public display of penance. It may not even be his choice. The YouTube sphere might demand it. Public penance goes back to the fourth and fifth centuries in the West when sinners were set apart from the community for a period of time during which they were observed and prayed over. The bishop would conduct minor exorcisms before they were allowed back into full communion with the church.
Nick may have to do something similar, except the internet will not be as forgiving, which is unfortunate. He deserves a chance to repent, “leaving the former things behind” (Phil 3:13) without constant reminders of his sin. The question is whether he has the presence of mind to do that. Right now, it’s not looking good. I hear he intends to represent himself, his wife, and the other woman in court. I’m sure social media can’t wait. He might just as well be doing it in Macy’s window.
Image credits: feature by Vladan Raznatovic; b&w by Taraqur Rahman. Want more? Go to Robert Brancatelli. The Brancatelli Blog is a member of The Free Media Alliance, which promotes “alternatives to software, culture, and hardware monopolies.”
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This seems almost synchronistic as I a few days ago I wrote my 683rd Zap Oracle card entitled, Acting out Inner Process in the World https://zaporacle.com/card/acting-out-inner-process-in-the-world-2/. Macy’s Window is a substantial subset of this universal human problem. I was inspired to write the card based on something going on in my life for the last three weeks. Someone I’ve been a friend and mentor to for more than twenty years, suddenly told me he wanted to visit me in Colorado. He was currently a college professor of Semiotics in Slovakia, and had just gotten married two months before. He sounded like his usual brilliant self and I was highly pleased and flattered by his many remarks about my recently published sci-fi epic, Parallel Journeys. A few days into the renewed communication, he told me that he felt something dire was about to happen in Eastern Europe and it was time for him to return the states. I lent him a substantial sum of money to get a short-notice plane ticket with the assurance he would pay back in three days. As it turns out, he is having something close to a psychotic break, is currently wandering homeless in Colorado and has yet to visit me as planned, and his wife and close friends are extremely alarmed and trying to get him to agree to an intervention. Chronic weed smoking (modern weed is so unnaturally potent that I’ve been seeing it wreck a few people close to me, a few months ago it contributed to the suicide of a niece who was also a college professor) is a likely trigger of the psychosis. At the same time a close friend was narrating how her close friend was acting out his inner process even more destructively. This has always been this human tendency, while those who are fearless and productive explorers of inner process act out their process via writing, painting, etc. in private and not in Macy’s window. (see my notes on Jung’s “menancing psychosis” during 1913-18 and how he dealt with it in the card linked above). Social media has taken the classic tendency to act out inner process in the world and merely displays it in a new world that lives behind Macy’s window.
By the way, I don’t recall the Macy’s window phrase though I walked through Herald Square all the time. I do rememberThe now completely obsolete phrase that was once quite common: “Does Macys tell Gimbels?” Try using that on a Gen Z. Anyone one who recognizes that phrase wakes up with joint point every morning.
That’s a wild, and sad, story about your friend as well as your niece. I’m sorry to hear the news, Jonathan. Thanks, too, for the reminder about acting out inner psychosis. Those demons, thought to have been defeated, have returned. It reminds me of Legion, the demon that came back sevenfold. Still, there is hope.
Growing up in Wilmington, DE (heard of it lately?), the phrase was to do something like this “in Wanamaker’s window”. Same sentiment, even if a different retailer.
I think Nick has no prayer of gaining forgiveness for his sins through social media, nor should he even care whether those people forgive hm or not. Forgiveness is meaningful only if it comes from people close to Nick, and hopefully they would be willing to accept his amends and resume a normal relationship with him.
Obviously, representing both women in court is not the ideal way to achieve this, though.
But I wish him luck, Rob.
Good point, Vic. He probably would be better off without going back online, but something tells me that won’t happen. Given his addictive personality, podcasting may be another, even more powerful, addiction. Thanks for the comment.