Henry Winkler’s Fish Pictures Are (Still) The Only Good And Pure Thing On The Internet Right Now

People are on edge right now, man. It’s kind of understandable, I guess, given the sheer number of things that are happening all at once. We’ve got a former president facing multiple indictments and getting people all riled up by yelling about it on any website he has a password to; we’ve got celebrities getting dragged for writing tone-deaf letters of support for their felonious former co-stars; most of Hollywood is on strike and livid at Drew Barrymore; a dude Spider-manned his way out of jail and triggered a two-week manhunt that ended with him getting arrested in a Philadelphia Eagles sweatshirt; everyone was shouting about Martin Short last week because one guy was kind of mean to him; Matthew McConaughey went on live television and rubbed Joy Behar’s bare feet, which is admittedly not as serious as the other things I listed but was still not something I needed to comprehend in an already chaotic month that is not even half over yet. It’s been… it’s just been a lot. Especially for the chronically online.

Luckily, for all of us but especially for me, Henry Winkler went on his fishing trip this week. And he is posting pictures of the fish he’s catching. A ton of them. Yes, again. Look how happy this man is.

LOOK AT HIM

LOOK AT HIS FACE

Reasonable arguments can be made that this is my favorite thing in the entire world. You can tell because I have written or assigned articles about it pretty much every year it’s happened. I just can’t get over the amount of joy leaping out of his body as he shows the miserable demons on Twitter pictures of the fish he’s catching. Imagine being this happy for even 30 seconds of your entire life.

What a gem. What an absolute gem of a man. I wish he was my grandfather. I wish he was everyone’s grandfather. We should pass a law declaring Henry Winkler to be America’s Official Grandfather. I can’t get enough of it. I say this as someone who does not even enjoy fishing or sitting in boats or even being outside in the woods or near a river for an extended period of time. I don’t even like looking at fish pictures, usually. I would be in hell if you sat down next to me with a photo album and flipped through page after page of pictures of fish you caught. I would be envious of the fish after about 45 seconds because at least their misery is over. Please do not show me your fish pictures. I cannot stress that point strongly enough.

But this?

This?

Shoot it directly into my eyeballs.

MORE

GIVE ME MORE

Okay, look. Admittedly, this last one is not a fish picture. But I need you to consider three things here:

• Based on the timestamps of his other tweets, there is a very good chance he posted this while scrolling through his phone all curled up in bed in his fishing cabin after a long day on the river
• “Kanya”
• Henry Winkler played The Fonz, who was, for many people, the epitome of cool for many decades, and now he is the most adorable man alive

Also, he posted this before 7:00 a.m. the next day.

Perfect. Just so pure and beautiful. A ray of golden sunshine peeking through the storm clouds. And it gives me great pleasure to report that he is like this in person, too, or at least over a Zoom call, and yes, this is where I once again link to the time I interviewed him while he was promoting the final season of Barry and he sat there very pleasantly and patiently while I veered things off-course by doing… this.

I have followed you on Twitter for years now. I consider you to be one of my favorite people on that website. You’re a lovely man, and you’re better at Twitter than most people I know. It seems like almost every summer you go on a fishing trip and you post these pictures of yourself with the fish.

Yes.

It is one of my favorite things that happens on Twitter, because, you know Twitter, it’s like a stream of “everyone’s miserable, everyone’s angry, everyone’s upset”… and then blammo, there’s Henry Winkler holding a fish. It makes me so happy.

Thank you.

What a sweet man. What a kind soul. Sometimes I’ll open up Getty images and type in his name and scroll through pictures of him posing with other celebrities and looking absolutely thrilled about it. This one is probably my favorite. But even Henry Winkler with Julia Roberts and Jennifer Coolidge can’t top the fish pictures.

I mean, honestly…

COME ON

LOOK AT HIM

LOOK AT HENRY WINKLER

We must do everything in our power to protect this man. You, me, all of us. Starting today.

We need him.

As a nation.

To heal.