Stop Giving a Shit About Ed Sheeran

Ed Sheeran was on Game of Thrones recently. Perhaps you read about it in the news. Ed Sheeran, the ginger guy who sings “Shape of You.” Game of Thrones, the HBO show with all the dragons and titties. He was on that.

He’s there for, like, five minutes. He plays a solder, and he sings a little ditty, and then he and his mates (which is what they call “friends” in merry old England) chat up Arya, in disguise. She tells them how badly she wants to kill Cersei Lannister, and they laugh it up.

My reaction to this scene was this: I said to myself, Oh, hey, it’s Ed Sheeran, and went back to watching the show.

But mere moments after the episode aired, I learned on Twitter, which is even more of a medieval hell than Westeros, people do not like Ed Sheeran! And they’re very! Vocal! About it! So vocal that he deleted his account!

Look, I don’t really care for Ed Sheeran either. I find his music middling and his public persona unexciting. He’s milquetoast, maybe the blandest entertainer in the business, and he's consistently reaching the top of the charts. He makes music for tweens who love to hear love songs and imagine they’re what he’s singing about, just like One Direction and Bieber and the Backstreet Boys before him.

But here’s the thing: I may not care for him, but I also don’t care about him. He does not affect my life in any way, nor likely does he affect yours. So what is the point of hating someone so aggressively average? What does it accomplish? What’s the point in getting mad at this when you can get mad at so many other fucked-up things happening in the world?
You can get mad at President Dipshit, the moron-in-chief, for being so bad at foreign policy that he threatened to nuke a sovereign nation from his golf-course highchair. You can get mad at Republicans for being so morally bankrupt they nearly eliminated health care for millions of Americans. In fact, you did! And it made a difference! You should do that the next time those monsters try to rip away your rights again.

Some other things you should be angry about instead of Ed “I Have Ginger Hair and Play Inoffensive Guitar Pop” Sheeran: We’ve been at war for 16 years. The president admitted to groping women on tape and the country elected him anyway. Flint, Michigan, still doesn’t have access to clean drinking water and hasn't for years. Colin Kaepernick doesn’t have a job, but Jay Cutler got hired by the Dolphins. Our society is built on massive, systemic inequality. Nazis killed people in Virginia last weekend.

Anyway, Ed Sheeran will play the American Airlines Arena this month. Go to the show. Or don’t. I don’t care. Fuck you.

Ed Sheeran. With James Blunt. 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, August 30, at American Airlines Arena, 601 Biscayne Blvd., Miami; 786-777-1000; aaarena.com. Tickets are sold out.