#EuphoriaTwitter
Who needs to watch Euphoria on HBO when Twitter is there to catch you up to speed?
As I am writing this, today being a fine Sunday afternoon, one may say that it’s Superbowl Sunday. While that person may be technically correct, a very vocal majority of Twitter would have to disagree.
Sundays are for Euphoria.
For those who haven’t been on the internet within the past three years and haven’t had their friends or family members rave about the show to them, Euphoria is an American teen drama series on HBO Max that centers around a group of high school students and their experiences with identity, trauma, social lives, love, sex and — perhaps most controversially — drugs.
Euphoria has been a contentious topic since its release in June of 2019. Fans of the show will praise the artistic cinematography that compliments the story rather than just slapping on some blue and pink effects and calling it a day. The style, makeup, acting and storytelling have also been huge selling points for fans.
For critics, however, the problems go a bit beyond the aesthetic. As previously alluded to, critics will say that the show glorifies drug usage with the enticing cinematography, glittery makeup and overly-attractive adult cast that are meant to be playing teenagers. The themes in the show — even though there are major content warnings before each episode — can be majorly triggering, especially for those who have struggled or know someone who has struggled with addiction. Given that the show packs in various dramatizations of multiple triggering topics in each one-hour episode, this show is certainly not for everyone.
Regardless of whether or not you’ve made the personal decision to give the show a proper shot or not, if you’re on Twitter in any capacity, it’s difficult to not have your feed saturated with Euphoria content every week.
The second season aired on HBO Max on Jan. 9 of this year, three years after the first season ended. While two special episodes following two individual characters’ stories aired in 2021 to make up for the delay in filming during the COVID-19 pandemic, fans have been chomping at the bit for this newest season for years. It’s safe to say that the fandom made it their mission to flood the blue bird app with memes and spoilers of every episode in the season the soonest they could.
If you watch the show but aren’t glued to the television right at 6 p.m. PST, it’s safe to say that your best bet to not be completely spoiled is to steer entirely clear of Twitter until you’re caught up. Whether you follow the Euphoria topic on the app or not, you are guaranteed to have some degree of spoiler on your timeline within five minutes of scrolling. Better yet, just delete the app until the season is over.
That should (hopefully) mitigate any accidental spoilers.
Even if you don’t follow the show, and even if you don’t follow any topic relating to Euphoria on Twitter, you could predict that your timeline will easily be flooded with Euphoria content for at least the next three days (if you’re lucky). Euphoria memes and discourse has an inexplicable way of overwhelming the Twitter space, whether you like it or not.
Speaking from personal experience, I had not been a true “fan” of Euphoria until just this past month, when my roommate sat me down to rewatch the entire first season with her in preparation for the second season’s release. I’m grateful that I am somehow involved in the fandom — however vaguely — in order to be in on the inside jokes that circulate Twitter. Quite honestly, if I weren’t, I could see just how annoying it would be to have nothing but random Euphoria memes on my timeline that make absolutely no sense to me whatsoever.
Though, I suppose that’s how you’d feel about any inside joke you’re not a part of.
While I found myself in a morbid fascination with the show, I wouldn’t say I am necessarily a devout fan and defender of the show itself. I see its flaws and understand where critics are coming from when they express their discomfort with 24–30 year old actors playing teenagers that abuse drugs and have completely unrealistic teenage sex lives.
However, I can also see the basis of its appeal, which lies within the way that the episodes are shot in themselves, where the camera work lends to the scene and enhances the storytelling, and how the show purposefully has deeply-flawed and morally ambiguous characters that you still root for, so that at the end of the day, if you can have empathy and sympathy for the characters that struggle with addiction and any of the other issues this show covers, then you could extend that same empathy toward the people you come across in your own life with similar issues.
Season two of Euphoria isn’t set to end for another two weeks, and even then I don’t foresee the memes and the discourse dying down much for at least another month. My advice to you: either block the topic “Euphoria” and anything related to it in your Twitter settings, or enjoy the influx of content. Up to you.
