1. Silly Bandz.
First of all, whatever "genius" decided that replacing an "s" with a "z" made something more culturally relevant is right up there with baby killers and people that use the deodorant in the store and put it back on the shelf. That's right, you heard me! YOU'RE the reason children don't know how to freaking spell!!!
Secondly, I have to ask, what is the point of the bands being a particular shape if when you wear them, you can't see that shape? Really? Your bracelet is in the shape of Scooby-Doo? It just looks like warped rubber from here. And the whole it's-for-you-and-no-one-else-to-know is ridiculous because the entire point of a fad like Silly Bandz is to display them for others. It's not about sharing your identity or personality with others. No one is hopping on board the Silly Bandz train to say, "I just want everyone to know what a unique individual I am! My collection of rubber bracelets expresses something deeply personal about me that I want to share with the world!" Even for children, who SBs were actually designed for, deserve better. I mean what happened to inherently cool toys like marbles or Beanie Babies or even pogs? Do you guys remember pogs? At least you could see what shape they were!
2. Axe Body Spray.
This one really grinds my gears, in the Peter Griffin sense. Imagine reversing the genders in all three of these commercials and these becomes nightmares, not fantasies. Just because women are the aggressors in these commercials doesn't make these ads feminist, it just makes them gross. Not only does it virtually compare women to animals, uncapable of controlling their own desires, it once again places the male in control because these ads are not meant to be frightening but titillating. Thousands of women overwhelming one man isn't bordering on gang rape, it's just going to be one big orgy. Two female TSA employees forcing a man to strip because he smells good degrades women who are actually in these positions by trivializing their actual jobs and authority. Also, the bizarre notion that a cheap disgusting smelling body spray will actually cause women to do illegal and predatory things is not only misleading, but dangerous. Because seriously, if women can do it, why can't men?
3. Kindle and Nook. Those of you who know me on Facebook have already heard my diatribe on the evils of the e-book. Stop destroying the printed page, Amazon! You don't have enough business as it is? Kindles can't be dog-eared, highlighted, have coffee spilled on them, or maintain that great old book smell. Convenience and portability should never trump the experiential and sensory capacity of the physical book! Long live the public library! Here's a site you can go to help support public libraries in America:
http://www.savethelibrary.org/
4. Tucker Max. Explicit content following: BE WARNED
To call Tucker Max a child, screaming in delight at the discovery of his own genitalia, is offensive to children. For those of you who have not had the pleasure of an introduction to this man and his onslaught on contemporary American literature, read on. Tucker Max is a "famous" former frat-boy/law student turned mediocre best-selling author of two non-fiction books, I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell and A**holes Finish First.
From the inside jacket of the latter, I produce the following quote:
"You get answers to hard questions you've never thought of asking: 'What's it like to have sex with a midget? What about two midgets?' 'How does it feel to get multiple request to 'f*** for charity?'' 'What does it do to a man to watch a 19-year-old do wind sprints to sober up, so that she can have sex with you before her twin sister does?' 'At what number of virgins does deflowering them stop being fun and start feeling like a job?'" (Max, Published: Gallery, 2010)
Max has spurred on an entire sub-genre of "fratire. Here are a few choice titles:
The Complete A**hole's Guide to Handling Chicks by Karl Marks,A**holeology: The Science Behind Getting Your Way and Getting Away With It by Steven B. Green, Men Are Better Than Women by Dick Masterson, The Modern Drunkard by Frank Kelly Rich, The Playbook: Suit up. Score chicks. Be awesome. by Barney Stinson, and You'll Never Blue Ball in This Town Again: One woman's painfully funny quest to give it up by Heather McDonald.
Whether it's his flippant delivery of stories about punching fat girls in the vagina (and why he was completely justified in doing so) or his clever way of dismissing issues of consent (can a drunk woman consent to having sex? is it legal to video-tape sexual intercourse without the other person's permission?) and human decency, Tucker Max has continued to meet with success in bookstores and college campuses across the country. More frightening to me? The number of women who think Tucker Max and his exploitation of women is hilarious.
Here's the trailer from the film based on the book:
5. Ke$ha. Ke$ha has no visible (or audible) talent. Also, she looks like smells bad. Far be it from me to disparage such fine lyrical passages as: "I'm talkin' about everybody's getting crunk, boys try to touch my junk, gonna smack 'em if they gettin' too drunk, now, now we going till they kick us out and the police shut us down, po po shut us down" but everything about Ke$ha upsets me. Her songs and music videos glorify risky behaviors including drinking until you black out, getting into cars with strangers, engaging in sexual activity while under the influence of drugs and alcohol (things that prevent someone from legally consenting to sex), challenging authority figures like parents and police, and just generally being a jackass. Her lyrics express contempt for rules, safety, hygiene, health, and respect for others - both physically and emotionally. And yeah, yeah, sure, she's not the first to do these things. But her annoying half-singing/half-speaking routine is SO Rex Harrison, circa 1967. I guess what I'm saying is that even if you put aside the questionable message Ke$ha is spreading like the herpes virus to the under 18 set, you have to admit there are corrupting influences out there that can at least carry a tune and brush their hair.
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Oh, yeah, and way to appropriate another culture for exploitative purposes, Ke$ha.
"Not that it was beautiful, but that, in the end, there was a certain sense of order there; something worth learning in that narrow diary of my mind, in the commonplaces of the asylum where the cracked mirror or my own selfish death outstared me . . . I tapped my own head; it was glass, an inverted bowl. It's a small thing to rage inside your own bowl. At first it was private. Then it was more than myself." -Anne Sexton
Agreed, agreed, agreed, agreed. That's only 4 agrees because I have no idea what Tucker Max is. But I pretty much want to stab Ke$ha.
ReplyDeleteHonestly? I'm not sure I want to have children in this world. How do you protect them from the nonsense without sheltering them so much they turn in to psycho killers or something? I have no idea.