The following is from a 3-way discourse on the Susan Boyle Phenomenon over at the Perpetual Post:
Let’s face it: Pretty is the new pretty. And the old pretty. And next season’s pretty. Looks are about all we have the attention span for these days—words take too long to listen to; forget about ideas. Because we like pretty, we prefer to get much of our social and cultural stimulation from pretty faces, which is sometimes hard, because pretty mouths don’t always say pretty things. Or smart things, or things that make sense. This is not a tragedy, since at this point, nobody wants to know how you got your sharp wit or your theory of post-modern architecture—they want to know where you got your shoes.
Attractive celebrities, it is ever more commonly believed, are by virtue of their attractiveness able to excel at many different kinds of things. Models design clothing lines. Actors discuss globalization in tabloid interviews. Bono is an Op-Ed contributor for the New York Times. Jenny McCarthy speaks out against vaccinating your children. Tila Tequila wrote a book. Meanwhile, authors scowl, and schedule a professional photo shoot for their next dust jacket, because they have to do what they can to keep up appearances. Appearances are important, because they count, and they are what they seem. If you are attractive, you will likely receive the attention you deserve.
When these attractive people stumble or fail at something new that they’ve tried a hand at, we mock them, sure—but deep down, the very fact of their attractiveness tends to earn them our grudging respect. We are willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. Because they are attractive, they deserve to be treated as special.
In turn, these attractive celebrities do their best to remain attractive to us, their public. They get plastic surgery, they diet and exercise and attempt to make their bodies as appealing as possible. They get their hair and makeup done, they put extreme amounts of consideration into picking out their clothes.
Sure, ugly is still there, plodding around behind the scenes, rearing its turtle head into the spotlight occasionally, but we prefer not to think about it. We see enough ugly in our real lives; on the bus, at the gym, in the office. In the mirror. When we open a magazine or turn on the television, we’re ready to see some pretty, please.
When relatively unattractive people venture into these realms of television and magazines, therefore, they have the deck stacked against them from the beginning. This was demonstrated during Susan Boyle’s audition for Britain’s Got Talent. The audience took one look at this dowdy older woman and dismissed her. This is a common reaction to plainness. We lack patience for the unattractive; particularly the unattractive person who has the same hopes of achieving fame and fortune as attractive people do. Relatively unattractive people remind us that sometimes, we are vulnerable and human and unattractive ourselves. We too make mistakes, and we fear that no one will give us a chance either.
When Susan Boyle surprised everyone by being reasonably poised and talented, the most surprising thing about it was how much the audience disliked her before she gave her performance. When you don’t know someone, you can’t hate them—but you can hate the parts of them that remind you of what you hate about yourself. The loathing and disdain directed at Susan Boyle were not really meant for her.
They’ve made so many of these movies that they’ll probably run out of title ideas soon, so I thought I would help with suggestions. Please feel free to add your own! I’m sure the producers are reading.
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Fast & Furious 4: Fastestest and Most Furiousousous
Fast & Furious 5: Now The Cars Talk
Fast & Furious 6: Is This a School Zone?
Fast & Furious 7: Oh My Back
8 Fast 8 Furious: The Final Fasteer
Arts & Culture Editor Jillian Lovejoy Lowery and I squared off about employer googling for this week’s Perpetual Post. You can find it here.
Next time you want to avoid answering a question, just take one of the words that was said to you, and repeat it over and over again, then wander away.
For example:
Q: “Hey, can you take the dog out?”
A: “Dog? Dog. Dog. Dog! Isn’t that a funny word? Dog. Doooog. DOG! Huh. Crazy, right? Dog…dog.” (wander away)
An Ode To Wings:
W is for how I have to Wipe my face after I eat you
I is for the Itch I have to eat some wings right now
N is for Not eating wings which I don’t want to do ever
G is for Gee I love wings
S is for the sauce which clings to your wingy surfaces
WINGS!!!!!!!
You know things are not going well in the world when you receive your quarterly newsletter from the company that handles your 401K, and on the back page is an article extolling the virtues of taking a ‘Staycation’.
Feeling guilty about the amount of bad energy you are releasing into the world every day with your terrible attitude and your evil deeds? You are right to feel bad—that energy is building up, gaining momentum, and breaking down the goodwill and kind actions of others. Your karmic footprint is growing increasingly negative with each snide remark you make, and thoughtless act you commit.
But fear not—as long as you have money, you can put things right again. Our new Karmic Offset program allows you to purchase good deeds to offset the cruel and mean ones you do every day. Our pricing is reasonable, and it ensures that your guilt is a temporary thing. In fact, you can atone instantly on our website using your Visa, American Express or Mastercard.
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Call now to start contributing good to make up for all of the awful things you do every day! For a reasonable sum, your influence in the world can be a positive one.
I took on Facebook one last time in this week’s Perpetual Post. See Akie’s response as soon as it’s up on Monday at midnight.
I think I know what it must have felt like for the people who hated television when it was in its infant stages. They probably recognized that this was the direction in which the world was headed, and that this new phenomenon was only going to become more and more popular. But that knowledge didn’t stop them from hating it, and from feeling sad as they watched it become more omnipresent every day.
It’s hard for me to put my finger on exactly what it is I don’t like about Facebook. I think a large part of the problem is that every time I visited the site when I was a member, I got the distinct feeling that I was indulging some sort of guilty pleasure. And not a fun, silly guilty pleasure, like watching a Lifetime made-for-TV movie or eating an entire plate full of hot wings. I love that kind of guilty pleasure, but this felt different. It was a dirty, wrong kind of pleasure, like stepping on a worm on the sidewalk or cutting someone off in traffic.
Not only did it feel like a bad guilty pleasure, but it also felt kind of like walking down a high-school corridor, lined with lockers and filled with frenetic teenagers. Suddenly, you were back in a world in which it was ok to make snap judgments, to snoop around and find dirt on people and then talk about it; to base your opinions of others on superficial criteria. Suddenly, I felt like I was in an adolescent echo chamber, and none of the echoes were particularly worthwhile, and many were simply cries for attention. This may not be everyone’s experience with Facebook, but can you see why I wanted out?
Even if your Facebook friends really are your actual friends, which I think is dubious for many, the types of exchanges the website fosters are the social equivalent of Cheetos; tasty at first, but also dry, artificial, and not particularly nourishing. Don’t think so? Here’s a typical Facebook exchange, re-imagined as an actual face-to-face conversation between three people:
Bob: “I am a fan of Cheese.”
Jill: “I like this.”
Pete: “I have given Bob a pretend Rum and Coke.”
Bob: “On Saturday I am going to this party.”
Is this where technology has brought us? Is this how far we’ve come? I think people probably had more interesting conversations with telegraphs.
Facebook’s utter ubiquity is also a large part of the driving force behind its popularity. After all, how could something be bad or harmful if everyone is using it? You might be wasting hours of your sweet young life on Facebook every day, but so is everyone else, so it must be ok. You might question the usefulness of giving someone a flower that doesn’t exist for them to plant in their virtual Facebook garden, but that’s just what people are doing these days, so it must have some validity.
I am also astounded by the way in which Facebook manages to make us look at data through the wrong end of a telescope. The notion of saving the rainforest is reduced to a vehicle to get people to download applications which enable them to plant more worthless virtual flowers. You join the cause to fight world hunger with the same level of interest and concentration you use while taking a test to find out what kind of Pirate you would be. Things that matter in the real world are reduced to empty, baseless concepts.
On the flip side, trivial information is given the star treatment and insignificant facts are trumpeted to the skies. On Facebook, commenting that you are sleepy, or in the mood for a muffin, or that you partied way too hard last weekend, is expected—and is bound to be recognized and commented on by numerous people. Terse, staccato snippets of conversation rule the day, and all the while, the amount of useful information we are really learning about each other, and our actual closeness to one another, continues to stagnate.
Human beings love drama; they love gossip, they love secrets and allies and conflicts. Facebook provides them with all of those things, and more—but at a price. It sets the stage for a living, breathing soap opera, and in return, it gives our lives the same amount of depth, dignity and meaning as you would find on an episode of General Hospital. Devotees to the site, I’m sure, would like to tell me that I don’t have to be a member of Facebook if I hate it so much, and they’re right. I just wish more people would question exactly why they do choose to be members.
Am I unreasonable to instantly stop trusting any eye doctor who tells me I can leave my contact lenses in for days and days at a time? That just seems like a crazy bad idea to me, and it instantly makes me look at them sideways and think “Snake Oil Eye Salesman!” I mean really, why would you do that? My contacts get irritating after wearing them for a long day, and it’s a relief to take them out. Why on earth would you go to sleep with them in, then get up and wear them all day again?
Does anyone out there do that? Please ‘splain.
A few nights ago I had a dream in which I went into a store (not a store I’ve ever been to; some random dreamland store) and looked at some jewelry. There were some decent necklaces; a plain one with some wooden pieces on it one kind of caught my eye, but I didn’t end up buying it.
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Last night, I had another dream, during which I entered the SAME dream store, and went straight to the back, and looked at the SAME dream necklaces.
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“Huh,” I thought. “Some of these are decent. And this wooden one is still here. But I’m still not sure about it.”
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Suddenly I bolted awake. “I am so boring!” I gasped.
I Heard Tell 