Niceness

Five people I never met wished me a Happy Friday last Friday by email. You can pretty much be wished a happy anything nowadays, except perhaps Easter, since this assumes you share in the joy of the Resurrection. The London lights now say Happy Ramadan. Actually, if I were wished a Happy Lent it’d be the equivalent of telling me ‘Happy Abstinence’. The point is it is one more notch in the creeping commodification of goodwill, the conformity of niceness. Happy Friday is a way for strangers to introduce themselves on a note of cheer, since they’re trying to get you interested in an event or a product. But they