Let’s talk about Cone Weed
A roadside weed decorated with Christmas lights and presents became beloved. Its removal caused an uproar. I am now questioning reality.
A roadside weed decorated with Christmas lights and presents became beloved. Its removal caused an uproar. I am now questioning reality.
In Huntersville, a weed grew up through an orange traffic cone on the side of a busy road, and whoever was supposed to mow it did not. Huh, you’d say if you drove by, would you look at that. It was an object of minute curiosity, like a misspelled name on a Starbucks cup or a potato chip that resembles the state of Iowa.
Then, somebody put Christmas decorations on Cone Weed, and it became a vehicle for hopes and dreams.
Two days later, WBTV reported on the Cone Weed. And, since the story was inoffensive, lightly humorous, and easy to replicate, literally every other television station in Charlotte aired their own Cone Weed stories over the next few days.
It was time, it seemed, for the creative class of suburban Charlotte to latch on to the virality of Cone Weed.
“It became sort of a symbol of resilience,” said one news anchor.
“Amazing how a weed can become a force of nature,” said a reporter.
“It’s bringing an incredible amount of holiday joy,” said another anchor, who noted that proceeds from the sale of Cone Weed T-shirts had raised $3,700 for local charities (now, it’s more than $8,000).
You won’t believe what happened next.
This morning, every local reporter made the same inquiry, leading to this confused, I’m sorry, what response from the state department of transportation.
A state agency tasked with, among other things, mowing weeds is taking heat because it mowed a weed. And then, we left the known universe.
I was going to write something about how our new information economy rewards the absurd and ephemeral over the boring but meaningful. About how our search for meaning in the chaos and algorithms that control our lives sometimes causes us to turn random objects into metaphors. About how social media has thrown the caliper we use to calculate the importance of things out of whack. But then, the North Carolina Department of Transportation returned the Cone Weed.
Look, Twitter has honed my love for absurdity into a weapons-grade snark. But this story has rearranged me at the molecular level. I feel drunk. My head is spinning. I once thought I knew how the world worked. Cone Weed has short-circuited me.
Because this is the story: A weed that grew up through a traffic cone was adorned with Christmas decorations and became a beloved local icon that inspired a song, charitable donations, and a saturation of media coverage, and its removal prompted a state senator to call for an investigation that resulted in the return of the weed to a local fire department, which will now honor it with a day of giving on December 10th. All of this happened over the span of a week and a half. Also, the weed was already dead. As am I. I am dead.
#JusticeForConeweed