Friday, January 31, 2014

Please God, Not Beiber

So Justin Beiber's gone insane and everyone's surprised. The reaction went something like this:

NEWS
Justin Beiber did something stupid today because he's twenty years old, and thus, an idiot. 

VIEWERS
How dare he be an idiot?! There was once a period when he wasn't an idiot! It's as if constantly watching his every move during his fragile adolescence has in some way warped his mind! I feel personally slighted! 

NEWS
In other news, here's a list of the Top Ten Best Times Hugh Grant Stuttered in an Amusing Fashion. Oh, the nostalgia. 

VIEWERS
If Notting Hill isn't on this list there's no hope for this fucking planet. 

And so on and so forth. 

It occurs to me I should probably watch the news a tad more often. Being of the useless millennial generation, I admit I'm a bit more inclined to watch The Daily Show and read Cracked, but surely there must be something that hasn't been transformed into a social media vehicle. At the same time, my level of concern for the antics of pop figures I didn't care about when they initially rose to fame is pretty minimal. I just feel I'm missing out on this great outrage. Like when Miley Cyrus discovered sex and everyone went nuts. 

It is interesting to note that the coverage of Justin Beiber's fall from pop star grace has focused almost entirely on his delinquent actions, whereas the coverage of Miley has focused on her sexuality. Could this be, perhaps, because we expect young men to discover sexuality, but we're still surprised when young women find it? Pictures of Justin have seen him shirtless and tattooed and clearly trying just as hard to be a sexual icon as Miley. Why is that not as shocking? Why do men fall from grace with their actions, but women fall from grace with their sexuality? 

Perhaps, I'm over analyzing. Or, perhaps I'm not analyzing enough. This millennial generation only ever goes two ways - we either overreact, or fail to react enough. The same could probably be said of the generation before us, and probably was. We have a habit of declaring the new generation is the most important generation ever, and then promptly telling them they'll amount to nothing. I wonder if we'll ever realize how much we repeat ourselves? 

I have to go to Spanish class. Perhaps I'll ask someone there. 

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