What do Oprah Winfrey, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Kevin Hart, Kanye West, Chris Rock, Katy Perry, Ron Pearlman and Will Smith all have in common? They all have considered running for President of the United States. And, the reality is, any one of them would probably win. How do I know that? Because Donald Trump, the least personable of any of them, did become President.
I find this disturbing. None of these people are qualified to be President. But they get elected because they are Pop Culture icons. They are recognizable and popular. Unfortunately, Pop Culture is doing more than putting people who do not belong in politics in politics. It is corrupting our youth and destroying our culture. Here are the ways it is doing it.
Not Cool to be Smart
It used to be that one had to learn English, math and history. Being smart and driven was something we all strive for. People wanted to be a doctor, astronaut or President. Not today. Today it is cool to have tattoos, be good at sports or some other entertainment clique. People do not want to study or work. They want to dig inside themselves and find some hidden (most of the time, nonexistent) talent that will bring them fame and instant riches. They sure do not want to stay in school and study. And why should they? The richest people in our country are those that feed into and make larger Pop Culture.
Ask around. Ask someone who the Vice President of the United States is or what the Emancipation Proclamation is. Then ask about Beyonce (I refuse to use the tilde for her name) who she is married to and how they're relationship is going. I am sure you will get an answer then. Listen to today's music. Can you understand anything they are saying? Are they actually using proper English? Ask someone when the last time they read a book. I bet it was not in the recent past (though I bet he/she has some bitchen tattoos and piercings).
We are becoming a culture dumbasses. We have gone from a country that created everything from the Internet to the band-aide. We are doing very little anymore. Innovators have been replaced by skateboarding, rapping, future, unemployed ex-high school basketball stars who never made it to the NBA. Oh and I am sure I am going to get accused of picking on someone so let us go right into point two:
The Snowflake Thing
Pop Culture is enabling a bunch of hyper-sensitive, whiny, easily offended, naive wimps. High school and college are made to get one ready for life. You know: where you have to meet expectations and perform in order to succeed. And if you want to get rich, one must out-perform all those around them. But schools are not doing that. Today, our schools work to fill our children's "emotional tank" and worry not to harm their self-esteem. It has gotten so bad that the "genius" professors in most of our colleges (you know, people who have never had to hold a real job) have needed to create "safe spaces" so that our emotional students do not have to hear anything that might set them off into an emotional tizzy. It has gotten so bad the psychologists have created a word for societal "triggers": the microaggression. I have little doubt now why psychology is not seen as a true science.
A microaggression is defined as, "a statement, action, or incident regarded as an instance of indirect, subtle, or unintentional discrimination against members of a marginalized group such as a racial or ethnic minority" (Google Dictionary). What does that mean? I could offend someone for calling him a he instead of a she because of transgenderism even though he is actually a he but has "feelings" about the plight of transgenders (even though he probably does not know a transgender person because the make up less than half a percent of the population). What the f***! In other words, I have to say the right thing based on someone else's opinions (which I probably do not know) because I will be labeled a bigot.
I have given up being politically correct as to not offend people like this. There's no point. No matter what, I will offend. But there is a something else. I cannot worry about how someone feels when I believe something different. If I hurt his feelings, then I am helping him grow up. Here's the story: the real world does not care about your feelings. You perform or perish. I do not exactly know when it happened that whining a lot became a social norm but I do not want anything to do with it.
Finally, So Uninformed
If you read my post two weeks ago, you read that about 70% get there news from social media (what can be more Pop Culture than that) or late night talk show hosts. This is bad because they are not hearing news but are listening to events seen through opinion. A Pop Culture zombie cannot see the facts from the opinion. I watch a lot of news and have learned (thanks to my parents and teachers) how to decipher fact from opinion. A single word in a sentence can change a sentence from a fact to an opinion. Internet news like Yahoo! and MSN are very opinionated. Even the main news networks (Fox News, CNN and MSNBC, not to mention the network stations) are filled with opinion. Heck, the Op Eds are considered main stories most of the time. News is so hard today.
But we are a short-visioned world now. We do not take the time to find out the real story or translate what is actually said. We listen (usually to someone who knows nothing of the subject) and feign outrage. But, when probed as to why one is so upset, that person cannot seem to come up with an a real answer. It just ends up being a bunch of emotional, outraged words with nothing reasonable.
Conclusion
I saw a movie a few years ago called Idiocracy. It is a satire about how the dumbest of the world keep breeding whilst the most intelligent wait, have fewer kids and, eventually, are bred out of existence. Needless to say, the future is bleak (by the way, the president ends up being a former professional wrestler and porn star. Sound familiar?). I hate to say this but we are already taking that road unless something is done and fast. We need to adjust our priorities and redefine what is important.
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Pictures courtesy of:
thewrap.com
hiphopmyway.com
thefederalistpapers.org
huffingtonpost.com
abc.es