Breakup Song Watch Sunday: Hope It Gives You Hell, by All American Rejects

What is the perfect breakup? Is it that fantasy where you both end it as friends who love each other but for some reason move on to new partners? No. That’s naive bullshit for high school kids and the White Stripes.

Better: Savoring everything about your new life that you couldn’t enjoy with your ex. Bonus points if you can work up a frothy lather of condescension for every way your ex differs from you in values, tastes, and habits.

But ask yourself: If she was such a greedy, bourgeois square, then why was I with her in the first place?

Ask yourself: If I’m so happy with my new life, why am I focusing so much energy on wishing revenge on my ex? Why did I feel the need to recruit my friends into broadcasting that fantasy?

Well, that’s just it, isn’t it? The whole problem with the relationship was how it undermined your position in your social cohort. Your buddies are cool musicians who reject the suburban 9-to-5 lifestyle and everything that comes with it. Your girlfriend embraced it. (Did she really embrace it? Or is that just you fudging history a little bit to make your point?) And now that you’ve eliminated your weak spot, you’re doing your utmost to solidify your place at the heart of the group by leading them to turn on the ex. It’s like Mean Girls, only with penises and electric guitars.

Eye H8 Jashley: Mean Girls and Twitter Unite

Did you know that Breakup Watch is on the Twitter?  Well, we are.  Follow us, if you’re into that sort of thing.  Otherwise, you can keep up with our tweets in the listing on the right of the page.

It was our participation in the Twitterverse that sensitized us to an internet subculture we knew nothing about:  Those Who Love All Things Jemi and Hate All Things Jashley.

Confused?  Then you must be of legal drinking age.

Jemi is the couple that was Joe Jonas and Demi Lovato.  Jemi is the epitome of young romance and talent, and proof that there is a God, and that He cares what happens to His people.  Jemi is also the tragic stuff of nostalgia, for those who refuse to let go of the past 6 months and cannot freaking move on.

Jashley is the couple that is Joe Jonas and Ashley Greene.  Jashley is sickening.  Jashley has sapped the universe of its vibrant hues.  It is due to the existence of Jashley that atrocities occur in Sudan.  Not because Jashley orchestrated them -- just because the existence of Jashley makes all evil things possible.  Jashley, you see, is a portal to hell.

The vitriol with which these adolescent Twits carp on Ashley Greene is breathtaking.  Well, let’s hope they’re adolescents!  Twitter mythology tells us that the love of Joe and Demi was pure, until Ashley lured Joe away with the sexual wiles of an older woman (she is 23).  Now the Twittersphere wails for poor Demi, who is on tour with the Jonas Brothers and must bear witness to the moral outrage of Jashley canoodling.  Being pure of heart, Demi has finally been overcome, and has threatened suicide/been hospitalized with a mysterious ailment/suffered an asthma attack that has called her away from the tour.  The Twitterati cannot decide whether she is truly dying of a broken heart, or whether she is making a graceful exit so as not to subject herself any longer to the crushing agony of knowing that Jashley walks the Earth.  And it is all Ashley’s fault, and therefore a pox on her house, a plague on her family, and many pimples on her hoo-ha.

You remember the mean girls of your youth?  So righteous, so indignant.  So . . . mean.  And now they have the Twitter.  Save us.