My general cynicism towards most of the world and
its inhabitants is something I’m often questioned about, either by people who
know me or read the words that I occasionally organise into sentences and throw
at the interweb. Most people get it and share my views on things, often
revelling in the fact that I say what they think. But some evidently don’t,
seeing me as both the visual and altogether literal version of the old dude
from Up.
My problem is however, that I can’t believe that
more people aren’t so cynical. There’s plenty to get annoyed about and in a
world constantly branding all 13-20 year olds as mindless drunk thugs or, and I
really hate this, youths, I think it’s much worse to sit back and let it happen
than to question it and, at the very least, write occasionally humorous
articles about things that really tick you off.
Take for instance the now accepted epidemic of fame
that we encounter on a daily basis. Now it seems that you only have to appear
on camera, pout and/or be an airhead from Essex to be famous, rather than having
any concrete skill or talent (apart from being a raging great douche).
Back in the day, even when I was a nipper in the
90’s, you generally had to be talented to be famous; musicians, actors and
sportsmen and women were flung into the public arena because of a skill they
had and not because they were willing to release pictures of genitalia or
create a viral video where they devoured feminine hygiene products. Of course
this rule wasn’t always adhered to, but more often than not, this was the case.
However, with the exception of the odd person here
or there nowadays who has a genuine talent, the dross of the celebrity Z-list
are becoming an increasing problem; especially as people younger than me are
led to believe that people like rejected X-Factor contestants and plastic
reality-TV fleshwastes are people to aspire to.
Take Rylan Clark for example, who I was introduced
to through the power of the arseholes who run TV, who is famous for being gay,
flamboyant and not winning X-Factor. That’s it. That’s pretty much the pinnacle
of a modern day celebrity; if you get enough consumerist teenagers behind a
cause, the cause is instantly famous. It’s sickening.
Nobody questions this and when you talk to a large
percentage people about him or, for example, Jedward they’ll say “oh, but
they’re really funny.” And people ask me why I’m so cynical.
Then there’s people who are famous for a reason and
really, in a modern context, shouldn’t be; like the Royals. Good luck trying to
escape coverage of that baby in the latter half of this year. But that’s
another rant for another day.
The world needs cynicism. If it wasn’t for a
delightful injection of cynicism into the vein of the world, we’d all wander
around with paperbacks of Jordan’s autobiography in one back pocket and a copy
of the Royal Wedding Hello special in
the other. We’d aimlessly walk down the street with a vacant look in our eyes
as we pay £200 a ticket for a plastic American teenager to mime to autotune as
he/she saps the very life from our brain and leaves us collapsed on the street
outside, an empty shell of a consumerist monster with no money left and
absolutely no taste.
The sad thing about this is that I can’t seem to
imagine the end. For reasons unbeknown to me, a large majority of teenagers
like ‘talent’ shows. Britain’s Got Talent’s
coming up next, presumably with Amanda Holden complete with her face that looks like
Ronald Lacey’s melting death mask at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. This upcoming series will no doubt spout
another stream of talentless but nonetheless ‘quirky’ brainfarts and pusbots, who
will then inherit all ITV2 and BB3 presenting jobs for the next million years
and will appear in pulp, teen pop magazines telling us what flavour of
ice-cream they like or what crap, consumerist nonsense they “can’t live without”.
I’m done now, I’m sick of this. Call me when it’s
the Apocalypse or when Rylan releases an album. Same thing.
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