As most of my friends know, I don’t watch television. It’s not that I’m trying to be pretentious, but its because most of the stuff on the TV makes me flaccid with rage.
When I occassionally hit the gym for a quick workout, I am unfortunately exposed, unknowingly to the depths of the pop culture underworld, grappling to find meaning in the vile detritus that makes up contemporary media.
Today, some pubescent girl next to me was on the elliptical, happily bouncing up and down watching a show called "My Super Sweet 16" on MTV. Its a show about the myspace generation and their wild coming-of-age parties… what the parents are thinking to throw their kids these sorts of parties, I have no conception.
My initial reaction to the show was OMGWTF. My second response to the show was OMGWTF, No wonder the United States is losing whatever superiority it ever had in producing a workforce capable of competing globally. Lou Dobbs, shut up about outsourcing already, and open your eyes to what is shaping our nation’s youth. Companies are going to go where the talent is.. and our MTV culture is NOT even making the slightest attempt at trying to solve the problem.
Though I’m not a raging "WorldIsFlat-ist"– I have a fair number of contentions with Friedman’s hypotheses — I did like one quote from his book…. "In China, Bill Gates is Britney Spears. In America, Britney Spears is Britney Spears."
C’mon Hollywood. Is it REALLY THAT difficult to make shows that enrich humanity, to inspire our teens to boldly endeavor to solve contemporary social ills? It’s not as if we’re lacking problems to solve, there are plenty going around. Don’t talk to me about the Discovery Channel or the History Channel or TLC… There hasn’t been a single time I’ve walked into the gym and any of those channels have been on. People have an aversion to learning or enriching their lives, and its because school has taught them that learning is boring. What if tomorrow, MTV were to undertake a bold new campaign to make their shows more meaningful?
I can hardly imagine what it must have been a child growing up during Kennedy’s time- when he expressed his enthusiasm for putting a man on the moon. His speech inspired decades of creativity, imagination, and made people work toward something. Even those who weren’t somehow involved in the space race were affected positively. They didn’t have shows like "My super sweet 16" back then.
::Sigh:: Alright, my rant is done, for now.
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