Oh, no! We’re a global pariah! Again! It’s on news.com.au, so it has to be true:

The whole world is laughing at us

Congratulations Australia! We made international news today.

It wasn’t for a sporting triumph. We haven’t released any impressive economic numbers. No one interesting has died, unless you count Bert Newton during his Logies speech.

No, we’ve made headlines at dozens of news organisations around the world including the BBC, The Sun, The Irish Times and The Straits Timesin Singapore because we’re throwing giant, howling tantrums over the supermarket plastic bag ban which came into effect at Woolworths on June 20 and Coles on July 1.

The reports each gleefully detail the howls of fury from Australia customers everywhere — in stores, on social media, on customer complaints forms — over the fact that plastic bags have now been banned at Woolworths, Coles, IGA and Big W nationwide. It’s even been given a name — bag rage…

So what does the world think of our bag ban butthurt? Well, over in California — Reuters in the US also ran a story about Australia’s bag rage — Americans are relishing the opportunity to call us idiots as we howl and seethe and shake our fists at the sky like toddlers whose Vegemite toast has been cut into squares instead of triangles.

“Bag rage!?” wrote one incredulous Facebook user. “You’re not serious. Apparently the US doesn’t have the market cornered on entitled douchebags.”

It’s not every day that a nation’s people can be called douchebags by a country that elected Donald Trump. Take a bow, Australia. What a time to be alive.

You know what? The whole world is not laughing at us. In fact, the whole world couldn’t give a shit, even if it had a few spare ones to give. Most of the world probably can’t point Australia on a map.

In fact, “the whole world”, in this case, consists of a few random people on social media.

I don’t know what’s worse garbage – discarded plastic bags or stories like this – but I lean towards the latter.

I lean towards the latter – and recommend this too:

Arthur Chrenkoff blogs at The Daily Chrenk where this piece also appears.

 Got something to add? Join the discussion and comment below.