As I do almost every morning that I have a day off, I sit down with my coffee and maybe some breakfast and browse the online news. Every day that passes, there are fewer “feel good” stories and more horrific news and stupidity. I cannot help but resort to quoting Adam Levine and hang my head and mumble “I hate this country.” I find myself in situations or reading something almost every day where I am completely embarrassed being an American. It seems like this country has become the drunk uncle that shows up at family gatherings and becomes so obnoxious that the police need to be called to haul him off to the drunk tank to sober up.
Lets start with twitter and its infinite source of ignorance and stupidity. I will go back to the quote of “I hate this country.” I know who Adam Levine is, a musician in a band and host of some music talent reality show. Maroon 5 or The Voice is not my cup of tea, but I am familiar with both. Apparently, Adam can be heard saying “I hate this country” during some vote off and it became some sort of firestorm of controversy in the press. In the online articles, one can scroll down to the comments section and browse through what the readers opinions are. The opinions range from support, to political battles, to “kick him out of the country,” and to “people need to relax.” The problem is that people just hear or read the words that are said and completely ignore the context at which they were said. he is a judge on a music reality show that has viewers voting on the outcome. I will come right out and say it; Americans are stupid and they will cast votes based primarily on shallow terms. I may not watch The Voice, but I have seen plenty of reality shows that voting was left in the hands of phoned in votes from the American viewers and it is sad. I honestly believe that Adam Levine made the comment out of frustration with American viewers and their voting as a popularity contest and not as an actual singing/performing contest.
Lena Dunham seems to be no stranger to twitter controversy. I have seen her name thrown around a lot over the past year or so, but I really don’t know who she is. I actually had to look her up to learn that she is an actress and filmmaker. She has won some awards for some TV show that she created, again not a show that I watch. Recently she tweeted, “Happy Memorial Day! I’ve already peed in two different Starbucks bathrooms!” HOLY SHIT, did people jump down her throat and get their panties in a twist of that tweet. Somehow, her tweet of 11 words marked her as disrespecting soldiers who gave their lives for their country and she is un-American. Twitter allows for only 140 characters for a quick little shared posting to followers. The tweet she posted has 2 sentences for those lacking skills in the basic English language/composition. Happy Memorial Day! and I’ve already peed in two different Starbucks bathrooms! Now, because public school education is such a complete mess, I will help educate on those little symbols at the end of each sentence. They are called exclamation points and they are usually used to complete a sentence. Exclamation points are usually after an interjection or to mark strong feeling or high volume. (definition from wiki) How on earth does those two sentences combined in a status update box of 140 characters make her un-American and disrespecting fallen soldiers?
One of my favorite pages to view how dumb the current generation is would be http://publicshaming.tumblr.com I have no idea who runs this page, but it is fantastic to read and “people watch” of pure stupidity and ignorance. When the media reports about “twitter backlash” and they post a gallery of screen shots of twitter posts, they usually black out or edit the person making the post. “Public Shaming” puts it right out there for the world to see that you may be a racist or a homophobe. By the way, white people should not be using the “N-word” and also the use of “sand N-word” is a pretty good indication ignorance as well. I grew up calling my friends a “fag” or a “homo” or a “retard,” it’s by no means an excuse, but it was widely used and tolerated back in the 80’s and early 90’s. I have grown up and matured and realize that it is disrespectful and no longer use those words. I NEVER use the N-word. My mother would have punched me right in the face.
Above is a link to a recent Cheerios commercial that is airing online. The Huffington Post had an article about this commercial. The commercial is about a mixed race family and eating Cheerios, but apparently we are still back in the 1930’s and should still have “whites only” signs everywhere. Seems to be a heated backlash about having a mixed race family in a breakfast commercial. I really have nothing else to say except that this mentality is down right stupid.
If I was an outsider looking in at American culture and my only source of information was the internet and social media, I would not find this place all that appealing to visit. It seems like all that we, as Americans, represent ourselves in our world-wide web foot print is drunks, bullies, racists, homophobes, cry babies, uneducated, without morals or ethics and ignorant.
Wake the hell up people and pull your own lives together. We are a complete embarrassment to outsiders.
The Id
controlledbytheid 