IOWA CITY, Iowa — Suburban father Tyler Rainey expressed frustration over children’s lack of media literacy, despite firmly believing country singer Garth Brooks and his fictional persona Chris Gaines are different people, confirmed sources.
“The fact that these kids believe the lamestream news media or that the earth is round is alarming,” said Rainey without breaking eye contact from Fox News on his television. “This is just like back in the day when that Chris Gaines guy showed up and tried to steal the thunder from Garth Brooks, the greatest country-music-rock-n-roll crossover musician to ever live. This Gaines guy was just riding the coattails of his own series of unlikely, horrific personal tragedies to try and get famous. Now if you’ll excuse me. The DMV just texted asking for my Social Security number and credit card information. Better get that ready for them.”
The man’s son Cole Rainey was unsurprised about this newest declaration.
“Dad’s really needed something to occupy his time since the whole ‘Snyder Cut’ debacle. I mean there’s only so many times you can watch a four and a half hour long movie that probably could have been a Wikipedia article,” said the 11-year-old making sure to keep his tone steady as contradiction was a quick trip to another rant from his father. “I tried to explain things like ‘context’ and ‘themes,’ but he was too preoccupied with an image of a crop circle in the shape of Jesus he saw on Facebook. AI slop is going to destroy that generation.”
Child psychologist Dr. Barkha Jailili was still ultimately optimistic.
“Sometimes in a child’s life, he realizes that his dad’s the kind of guy who thinks ‘Robocop’ is a movie about how awesome robot cops are or that Homelander is the ‘real hero’ of ‘The Boys,’” said Dr. Jailili. “I don’t know Cole’s father, but I’d imagine he’s the type to loudly threaten a fictional character like Chris Gaines, and once you put aside that he owns three guns, you just hope he’ll lose interest because Billy Ray Cyrus did another collaboration with Lil Nas X. People like him give themselves questions they think only they can answer, but Cole’s a good kid. He’ll bounce back from this after around five years of intense therapy. Maybe three years, if he finds an understanding, supportive partner!”
As of writing, Mr. Rainey said he firmly believed that one of the Property Brothers wasn’t real and a hoax created to sell ad space.