With One Tired Sitcom Punchline, We Lose All Our Sympathy For Cleveland

Yesterday, How I Met Your Mother featured a LeBron James joke. It wasn't like the LeBron James jokes we've seen elsewhere on TV because it was just lazy as all hell and made me realize how tired I am of Cleveland's martyrdom.

In the episode, protagonist Ted is hosting his Cleveland friend, Punchy, whom Ted's archetypal television-New York friends find insufferable. So, to convince his East Coast friends to let Punchy hang out a little while longer, Ted makes a play for their sympathies. Lo, his attempts are fruitless, so he goes for the LeBron-left-Cleveland-so-really-shouldn't-we-give-Cleveland-a-break-since-that-was-so-hard-on-them angle. To great success.

That's a lazy joke, but what's worse is the underlying sentiment (we should feel bad for Cleveland). Cleveland is never going to "get better" if people are constantly harping on how we should feel bad for Cleveland. What LeBron "did" to Cleveland could be considered shitty, but he's still only a basketball player. He did not leave and take the flu vaccine with him. He is gone, and he's not coming back (at least not in the next five years), so it's time to focus on the positives: Colt McCoy is going to be better than Tim Couch; J.J. Hickson isn't that bad; and, if things get really desperate, Columbus and Rick Nash are a short drive away.

We know it's hard right now, but — to coin a phrase — it gets better.