It’s been said that “for evil to triumph, good men must do nothing”. One may think I’m referring to the conflict in Libya or general unrest in the Middle East. If only this blog were dedicated to something as simple as world peace. No my personal stand is against the evils perpetrated on the public by the cast of Jersey Shore, Rebecca Black and the unfortunate rise of bargain basement celebrity.
Like most, for years I was content to say “Yeah Jersey Shore is stupid; ignore it and once the novelty wears off people will forget all about them.” However, that was until I saw Nicole “Snookie” Polizzi on the cover of Rolling Stone Magazine. Being a journalism student with a concentration in magazines, I felt personally attacked.
This probably isn’t the timeliest rant is it? As it stands the Jersey Shore crew is about to commence filming on season 4 and respectable print journalists from publications like the New York Times have lambasted the Shore crew much more eloquently than I could ever hope to. I probably missed the boat arguing for the execution of all those involved with Shore but as long as they continue to film, I will continue to bitch. That, my friends, is a promise. Also, just because it continues to exist doesn’t mean it should be tolerated. Every few months someone should remind the public that these people are neither normal nor role models. When the president opens every State of the Union address it should begin “My fellow Americans, the state of the union is _____ and every member of the Jersey Shore is an unequivocal bag of douche.”
I like to think the majority of folks don’t watch Jersey Shore or at least recognize they are possibly the most evil program to be placed on television since Christian Slater’s “My Own Worst Enemy” (I’ve been told the pilot was written by Lucifer himself). However, as it stands, Jersey Shore ranks as MTV’s most popular series to date. Over the past few years this has puzzled even the most knowledgeable of pop culture enthusiasts (although I’m fairly certain Revelation makes mention of Stupidity being the 5th Horseman of the Apocalypse).
To a lesser degree, this celebration of all things idiotic leads me to the issue of Rebecca Black. If you don’t know who Rebecca Black is, good for you, but she happens to be a 13-year-old girl who recorded possibly the stupidest song of all time and has since become a YouTube and iTunes sensation.
Forget identity theft and electronic terrorism, this is the biggest problem with the information age. Every talentless jackass around the world now has a means of broadcasting their awfulness. From the god awful vocal styling’s of Rebecca Black to hack writers with blogs who…whoops, may be showing too much of my hand with this point. Seriously though, for every decently funny clip that makes it to YouTube (almost always of someone hurting themselves in hilarious fashion), there are thousands of videos that further bolster my case for licensing people before allowing them to procreate.
The question that really keeps me up though has to be: When did we start celebrating these people?! 400 hundred years ago they didn’t celebrate the village idiot and shower him or her with money, recognition, magazine covers, etc. They pelted that person with small rocks until they left town or died. Fucking rocks! Now people equivalent to village idiots make tens of thousands of dollars.
How I long for the days when you had to be good at something to be famous. Even to be infamous you had to do something noteworthy. Al Capone was a terrible and morally bankrupt individual, but you know what, the guy was good at bootlegging alcohol and killing people. Am I advising that you go out and start a murderous killing spree to gain national attention? No. However, if it keeps you from posting your dumbass movie parodies on the Internet, I’ll take the first bullet.
Again, maybe I am way behind on this but the buildup has been a long time coming. When Jerry Springer’s show began gaining national attention, I was too young to care and looked the other way. When William Hung from American Idol was screeching like a retarded hyena and obviously stood no chance of becoming a professional singer, I again wrote it off as a fluke when he secured a record deal. It shames me to admit that when Flavor of Love was at the height of its popularity *sigh* I too watched with morbid curiosity. To some degree I blame myself for allowing this to flourish.
Collectively it’s high time we turn the tide of programming, stop celebrating the talentless and demand that the cast of Jersey Shore be stoned to death. Just kidding…no I’m not.
No comments:
Post a Comment