ROME — No sooner had workers hoisted a 72-foot tall Norway spruce in Rome’s central Piazza Venezia this month than the mocking began.

The tree was quickly nicknamed Spelacchio, or Mangy, because so many of its dead needles were dropping off, leaving the tree looking a bit bare. Chatter spread quickly on social media where Romans traded jokes about the spruce and criticized its sad appearance.

Insults quickly turned to intrigue as the Italian media plumbed the tree’s costs, questioned how it had been transported to the city and analyzed its state of health.

And in newspaper commentaries, the tree became a symbol of the Italian capital’s decline, moving the controversy from local news to national front pages.

Full story here.

Poor Rome. Trying to do something nice for its citizens and just fucking it up in a terrible way. Buying a giant tree is a super generous thing! Except for the fact that the tree is dead, that makes it not a nice thing. I mean this isn’t great for anyone, everybody who’s responsible for the tree is watching it with baited breath, hoping that it survives until Christmas; and everybody else is just shitting on everything about Rome.

They’re not only shitting on the tree, but they’re saying that the tree is a metaphor for how shitty the city is. That’s brutal! Rome bought a dead tree and opened up a whole shit can of worms! This is what brought down a city! Rome bought a dead tree and now it’s clear that everybody’s fucking tired of Rome! You try to do something nice and suddenly people are calling for revolution. You try to put your best foot forward for the holidays and you buy a dead tree and now everybody thinks you’re the worst fucking city in the world.

I will admit it though, this may be the fucking ugliest Christmas tree I’ve ever seen in my life. Pathetic. Rome kind of deserves all the shit in the world for spending $60,000 on a dead-ass piece of driftwood.