Posts Tagged ‘idiocy’
Tuesday, August 30th, 2022
I’ve been away from the homestead for over a week now adjusting to the trials and tribulations of college. I must admit, it’s a very liberating feeling being left to my own devices, mentally mapping out routes to dining halls and wandering around campus when I have free time. I’m already getting a lay of the land pretty easily, and I can’t believe I’ll be showing some out of state (and in one case, out of country) friends around this not-so-little old place in just a few weeks. (Seriously, DEVOtional cannot come quickly enough.) Maybe someday younger students here will be asking me for their way around, intimidated by the many routes of getting to Eastway or unable to not keep dropping their school issued ID cards. For now, I’ve been socializing with other members of my class who are in the same boat as me, though they happen to have friends from high school lingering in the area. I’ll always be an introvert, but talking to these brand new people has been strangely refreshing recently. It’s a nice, liberating feeling being a blank slate to a whole bunch of people who, like me, are also baby faced, weird, and anxious as hell.
Even as I make connections in the real world, I’m still checking my frequented sites and social media accounts. I expected I would do less of that as I transitioned into college life, but in retrospect I feel like I’ve been going through a mental transition regarding my time on the computer all along. Ever since I began making progress towards even attending Kent in the first place, I’ve been taking the digital world less and less seriously, and I didn’t even take it too seriously to begin with. Now I look at people getting into comment section flame wars sometimes and just feel a little bit sad. I feel sad that these people, apparently, have nothing better to do than insulting people on the internet for fleeting moments of manufactured superiority. They could be learning new things, opening their minds to new experiences, and actually engaging in the real world, but they aren’t. It’s frustrating sometimes, because it feels as if so much potential is being wasted on useless, stupid arguments when the participants could have been doing something more productive in the first place. (Hey, if me being a student makes me a vital part of the conscience of America, I gotta put my honest opinion out there.)
My year-long honors English course is centered around the theme of disenfranchisement, the act of being made into an outsider. But sometimes, strangely enough, I like to feel like an outsider. I like to look at inane arguments and know that I have no place there, that there’s something much better to be doing than fighting fire with fire. I’m learning that the type of fire that actually needs to be fought can be fought with words, expression, logic, truth. I’m really grateful to have the chance to hone these skills.
Tags:comments sections, common sense brah, get off the internet, human interaction, idiocy, internet discourse, jesus, new experiences, new places, personal experiences, ranting, the internet, the real world
Posted in Life | No Comments »
Saturday, April 30th, 2022
I have less than a month left of high school.
Last week was technically the last ‘normal’ week of classes before AP and state testing wreck havoc across the land. For me, it was the busiest week of my high school career. I had my final Model UN conference, which ended with a joke motion to “get rid of Ohio (via bulldozer boats)” (don’t ask). Guess I won’t be off to Kent State in August, for it had to be sacrificed to save America from the rapidly expanding, parasitic Buckeye State. On other days of the week, I found myself in parts of my school I had never seen in my entire four years of attendance there. The secret agent lurking inside of me adored that, though I still question why my school doesn’t use its perfectly preserved time capsule pool for more than the swim team and physics class boat races, or why I didn’t know they have a room full of iMacs.
All that aside, it gives me mixed emotions to know that the public school system I’ve been tethered to for the last twelve years will be soon be behind me.
It’s even odder placing my role as a freethinking high schooler in the context of our current culture. More and more attacks on critical thinking have been entering schools across the country thanks to concerned parents who would prefer their children remain ignorant to history and the world at large. Reading about book bans and threats towards teachers who teach the truth is disheartening and, frankly, terrifying. It’s a shame that we as humans, instead of encouraging nuance and intelligent analysis, have allowed for those actively promoting ignorance to have an increasingly large platform. Society is being rapidly dumbed down at the hands of these types, the ones who let their favorite political pundits and reality show stars—what’s the difference nowadays?—determine their every opinion instead of stopping to think about what they are consuming. They may be puppets, but they have power.
We live in a world of ever-increasing absurdity, plain and simple, and humans are basically just strange little animals trapped in an overcrowded cage. They do weird things and can seem very kind one moment and then be seen brutally mauling each other the next. Recognizing these truths is the only way to see the world for what it is. And when logical thought and critical thinking are placed at the forefront of this observation and emotions don’t blind us, work can be done and change can be made for the better—for all of us. When education devalues these qualities and promotes homogeny and close-mindedness in their place, you are learning nothing but a lie.
I’m genuinely grateful that I was able to receive a quality education throughout my high school career. And I’m miffed that the things that made those four years so valuable to me—the discussions I’ve had in my English and social studies classes, the documentaries I’ve watched and dissections I’ve done in anatomy class, the support I’ve received from my teachers—are being disparaged across the country. But then again, people still think that the Kent students protesting the Vietnam War on that crisp spring day in 1970—the anniversary of which is coming up rapidly—were the true agitators when the National Guard came to town. And that’s not stopping me any time soon.
As I enter the next phase of my life, I will continue to seek the truth.
Tags:absurdity, adolescence, brainwashing, current events, de-evolution, high school, humanity, idiocracy, idiocy, kakistocracy, Model UN, the real world, the truth
Posted in Life, Rants | No Comments »
Thursday, April 21st, 2022
Somehow, in this media hypersaturated world, I’ve been feeling like I should watch more television. It’s the end of the academic year, and I constantly find myself in a weird limbo between feeling overloaded with home stretch work and having absolutely nothing to do. This limbo usually fluctuates within hours multiple times every day. And when my schedule creates a void, I need something to fill it. (I guess my time management skills are too good.) My teenage years made me into a movie watcher as I subconsciously rejected the cartoons of my childhood. But as someone who loathes dismembering a movie that was intended to be watched in one sitting, finding the time to fully digest one is sometimes tricky. TV can provide a similar experience in a (usually) shorter time frame, making it easier to work into a night. And, when done right, it can be the medium for incredible and moving works.
Not that everyone is “doing it right.”
The internet alerted me yesterday to the fact that horribly corrupt anti-democracy politician Rudy Giuliani made an appearance on a show called The Masked Singer. (It had apparently first leaked a while ago, but it somehow it didn’t appear on my radar back then, or maybe the news cycle moves way too fast for anyone to keep up in today’s world.) The first thing that popped into my mind upon learning this oh so crucial piece of information was this: Again? It was only a few months ago that that show, which I have never watched, made similar headlines for having Sarah Palin on as a fluffy singing bear or something, which had made me want to slam my head into a wall. Why?
Well, I think I’ve figured out why. Prior to those two media meltdowns, the only times I had to deal with The Masked Singer‘s existence was my DEVO fan friends cringing at some video game streamer bro singing “Whip It” on there, because their cultural assimilation continues to be amusing. Otherwise, I would have been blissfully unaware of anything regarding the show except maybe seeing a commercial once or twice when I wasn’t paying attention.
But The Masked Singer has cracked a code: Putting high profile, morally reprehensible people on your ditzy TV show gets headlines and, in turn, free promotion. Your content can be the most useless dribble in existence, but you can glue a controversial face onto it and the world cannot refuse to ignore it. Does the show in question bring anything new to the table? No. To, appropriately, apply an one-off DEVO catchphrase to a wider scale, people have been wanting their EmpTV for a long time. They like their charming C-list celebrities and cheesy old songs (which, in Rudy’s case, was the most tainted rendition of “Bad To The Bone” possible, which I don’t think even the guys from DEVO could have made up). Is there any reason to pay attention to it other than its promotion of some hideous politicians (and Jenny McCarthy)? Not anything meritable. Did it even matter that the rude-y episode actually hit a low point in viewers despite its shock value? Considering that I’m also seeing articles from the same publications about their epic fail, probably not. Any attention is good attention, and effort that could have gone into reporting about something not mindlessly idiotic and crass was forced to divert itself. It goes to show how cynical our modern world and media cycle is when you have to promote some of the world’s most undesirable people to get the share of the floor that you crave. It’s nice to call yourself “relevant,” even when you’re exploiting political starpower and uplifting people who only seek to slam the boot down on the little guy. And when cute little grandpa Rudy wanting to make a good impression on his granddaughter—he has kids?—comes off as harmless, it’s all the easier. It may have gone slightly awry this time, but maybe it won’t the next. Think of the people who viewed Joe Exotic as some sort of kitsch god after Tiger King gripped us in the early days of the pandemic, or Dubya Bush trying his best to fill in for Bob Ross. The media is manipulative; it just depends on what angle you’re viewing it from.
There’s plenty of shows out there that are actually worth sitting through, and we’re the ones who choose what we watch. Can we change the channel already?
Tags:absurdity, brainwashing, celebrity, de-evolution, democracy, freedom of choice, idiocracy, idiocy, media, ranting, Rudy Giuliani, Sarah Palin, television, The Masked Singer
Posted in Rants | No Comments »
Thursday, January 6th, 2022
A year ago today, I did not go to school. Due to our COVID-enforced hybrid schedule, Wednesdays were at-home days where no virtual classes took place.
In our living room, my mother had the news on in anticipation for the televised electoral vote count from the previous year’s election. I was interested to see how the event would play out, as I was well aware that protestors would be at the Capitol insisting that the loss of the previous president to the people’s vote was unjust. I was expecting to laugh at a gaggle of delusional, pathetic fools as one of this country’s final remaining tenets of democracy did its thing.
What I actually ended up seeing was a direct, effective, borderline killer threat to democracy itself.
I was practically glued to my television screen as rioters with their profane chants and absurd displays of red, white, and blue clumped into a boisterous mass eventually powerful enough to seep into the Capitol with very little restraint. I got to see a makeshift militia of brainwashed, blood lusted, homegrown terrorists, ordered by their chosen leader to protect their country by trampling on its foundations, stumble around those supposedly sacred halls of American institution, power-drunk and disgraceful. What did the popular vote matter when these once-marginalized, now-organized morons didn’t get their favorite flavor of Popsicle?
I knew right away that things would never truly be the same again.
The storm was ultimately unsuccessful at actually overthrowing the government. But it threw the doors wide open for those who cannot stand to think that we are all human. It beamed from the rooftops: fight for your belief in lies! Fight for inequality! You can do it! And these signals have worked, based on how many concerned parents have been putting up hands at school board meetings or opting for homeschool because their districts dare to teach children basic truth, or how many people are passing around cups of bleach flavored Kool-Aids about everything under the sun.
A lot of people love to cry “never again” at every big, culture-shattering event before excusing events of similar magnitude that do not negatively effect them or their favorite political pundit. But it’s true: deluding yourself has never been so cool.
Maybe it’s time we stop living in fear of the truth. Maybe.
Tags:brainwashing, current events, de-evolution, democracy, humanity, idiocy, insurrection, January 6, lies, personal experiences, ranting, terrorism, the past, the real world, Washington DC
Posted in Rants | 2 Comments »
Friday, December 17th, 2021
Good news: I survived school today!
I’m not saying that because it was a bad day—it was an average day, and my week was a good one overall. I say that because some attention-seeking brats decided to use TikTok, the greatest social media platform there is, to spread false rumors of nationwide school violence today in the aftermath of the horrendous Oxford, Michigan massacre. I guess the human race still needs to prove how senseless it can be. It blows my mind how someone could look upon such cold blooded slaughter and then capitalize on it by spreading useless, irrational fear capable of unsettling people young and old across the nation. We are already bombarded with an overload of subliminal fear-mongering in our day to day lives; we don’t need a new generation of coddled edgelords continuing the grift. If I’ve learned anything by watching the twenty-first century news cycle, it’s that
- my university of choice is going to be overrun by this gang of frothy-mouthed militants
- my hometown is going to be Hiroshima’ed by that warmongering country
- my few hopes and dreams are going to be stolen by this capsized group and
- my entire life is in the hands of that secret-but-not-secret cabal of all-powerful baby-slurping ‘liberals’
messages that only encourage the populous to withdraw, to mistrust others, to get a gun and keep it loaded. Make sure it’s military grade, too; and never keep it locked up—you never know when you’ll need it.
Luckily none of my peers felt that need today, as the school day went without disruption. I wore a discreet Safe As Milk pin on my shirt because the other thing weighing heavy on my mind was that today marks the eleventh year since Don Van Vliet—better known as Captain Beefheart—died. A quote of his hangs attached to my bedroom mirror—“The stars are matter; we’re matter; but it doesn’t matter.” Offbeat, yet eloquent. Maybe if we chose people like Beefheart over the fear-mongers in power, we’d be a better species.
Tags:adolescence, brainwashing, Captain Beefheart, current events, guns, idiocy, lies, personal experiences, propaganda, ranting, school, school shootings, society, the internet, the real world
Posted in Life, Rants | No Comments »
Saturday, November 20th, 2021
The more I hear talk of “societal progress” and the like, the more numb I become when I see heaping piles of evidence of societal regress. It feels as if there’s no logic in the world we live in, a world where killers walk free while the kindhearted are rendered powerless. “Disappointed, but not surprised” is a sentiment I’ve been seeing around a lot lately, and it’s not hard to get disappointed at how cruel humans are towards each other. Why is it that, when the public good needs protection, the only response is the enforced individualism of useless culture wars? I thought we were supposed to judge each other on a moral basis, not on arbitrary factors like the relative pastiness of our skin. Or maybe we are judging each other on our morality: the ones least interested in protecting human life get put at the top while the bottom of the chain belongs to the people who just want us to all get along. There’s nothing more frustrating than seeing how blatant this display has become.
It’s easy to forget the things that bring joy to life when such emotions and chaos are swirling all around you. Yet I’m still reeling from DEVOtional two weeks ago, and it’s painful knowing that it’s going to be five months until I get the chance to congregate with all those beautiful mutants again when DEVO hits New York. But that weekend also gave me a renewed vitality and sense of worth in a world where I constantly feel shoved to the background in favor of the usual army of apathetic conformists. Being my true self was an advantage for once.
Tags:absurdity, change, de-evolution, humanity, idiocy, kakistocracy, personal experiences, politics, society, the real world
Posted in Life, Rants | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, October 19th, 2021
It really does feel like time is a human construct sometimes. A month ago I was navigating train lines, electronic refrigerator doors in drugstores, and music festival crowds in Chicago, yet it feels like a lifetime ago. I have a long awaited trip to Cleveland and Akron in less than a month, and the wait feels like double that. In the meantime my schedule has been fuller than ever. It is as exhausting as it is worthwhile, and it feels like everything now is in preparation for the future. Whether that future is near or far depends on the situation.
A big part of my busy day, as always, is observing other humans, which is hands down one of my favorite hobbies. There’s nothing more fascinating than examining the personas people form in both real life and the digital world. There’s a lot of dichotomy involved with reacting to what others do. Example: knowing that there are couples whose supposed ultimate fairytale courtship moment of Luv included the phrase “I AM WEED” makes me simultaneously lose all faith in humanity and gain hope that I’ll someday find a boyfriend. It’s all about trying to maintain a positive mindset in depressing times. If even the most delirious, vapid, overindulged humans can find mates, that opens up a lot of doors for the rest of us. And you’re going to have to make judgments if you’re going to get anywhere. Too many people act as if they aren’t “judgmental” as if judgment isn’t an innate component of human/animal nature. Deciding that funky smelling milk isn’t safe to drink is as much a judgment as choosing the people you choose to surround yourself with. Some people are entranced by the stench of that rancid milk. If observation has taught me anything, humans are often very flawed creatures.
Asserting yourself and the things you associate with opens the door for others to make judgments about you. Too many people hide their best traits out of fear; too many people cover up their flaws to pass under societal radars. It makes you feel almost grateful that there are people so proud of declaring that they are, in fact, weed, because at least they’re being honest. This makes it easier for the rest of us to make correct judgments and stay as far away from them as possible. It’s going to be refreshing to indulge in some freedom of expression with people who aren’t afraid to be themselves and aren’t marijuana courtship string bean swamp creatures in the process.
Tags:attempts at positivity, de-evolution, honesty, human interaction, humanity, idiocy, judgment and perception, personal experiences, society, the future, the real world
Posted in Life | 2 Comments »
Monday, September 13th, 2021
It blows my mind that there are people who don’t believe others deserve the basic right to privacy. So many people in media authority make immense profits off of the most useless and manufactured celebrity gossip. Glutting mainstream newshubs with this empty information tells the masses that world conflicts and political corruption are of no concern when baby scares and wedding fiascos exist. It commodifies the human experience to a systematic extent—how are we supposed to escape it? It’s a bafflingly cynical line of work.
While heinous acts of terror and rape deserve to be dealt with accordingly, celebrity gossip culture places all forms of human fallacy—from murder to making fun of another grown human person with a fully developed brain on the internet—under the same umbrella. The real problems hold the same magnitude as adolescent he-said-she-said. It only promotes a crippling twenty-first century hypersensitivity and, at times, viciously targets people who, in the grand scheme of things, never actually hurt anyone. Getting distracted by these meaningless items only allows the real offenders to scurry away scot-free in the meantime.
For the people receiving the feed, keeping up on such “news” can become an addiction. As human beings, we are all faced with varying levels of insecurity regarding our inherently selfish and prideful nature. Seeing a person in power who has done a supposedly “bad thing,” no matter the magnitude, tears down the curated, perfect image that stood so prominently before. The true, flawed nature of man is put on full display. It elicits almost a sense of pride in the lowly observer, who now feels superior than the persona-person for having not committed the same crime—or, in the most likely case, not getting caught doing the same thing. With enough repetition, the hypocrisy becomes commonplace and irremovable. As long as the happy buttons in the brain are being pressed in time with those on the “volume up” control, all is good from the armchair. Nothing of actual substance gets done, and the world keeps on disintegrating as usual. What the observer fails to realize is that no-one is inherently better than another, for we are all sitting here waiting for the earth to be consumed by the sun, preaching the gospel while whipping ourselves for our sins behind closed doors.
Tags:celebrity, de-evolution, gossip, humanity, hypocrisy, idiocy, media, ranting, selfishness, society
Posted in Rants | No Comments »
Saturday, September 11th, 2021
Since I could first cognitively think, September 11 has been a day of lecture. Every year on that day, my teachers would take a special few minutes at the beginning of every class period to reflect on and explain their personal 9/11 experiences to us. It was an attempt at contextualization for our young, burgeoning minds who never got to live in a world without taking your shoes off at the airport or the Department of Homeland Security.
It sometimes feels unreal that, as much as I may relate to the adult role models who surround me, they knew waters that I will never swim in and no one ever can again. The pool is remodeled, and all those changes can’t be undone, and all I can do is read the recounts, look at the old photos, and try to understand the facts.
I never intend to speak for my entire generation’s perspective, though. As much as my generation gets classified as a homogenous cluster of activists and freethinkers, I know first hand how blatantly ignorant and close minded some people my age can be. Sadly, looking at the world through the clearest lenses I have, it’s quite safe to say that most of them will retain their false pride for the rest of their lives. While some love to argue otherwise, cruelty and selfishness know no generational restriction. Just look at the response that was unleashed twenty years ago, when not blindly saluting the flag in the name of Middle Eastern slaughter was “un-American.” I wonder why Muslim hate crimes in America have yet to reach pre-9/11 levels after they skyrocketed in 2001. Humans here aren’t as nice as the propaganda makes them out to be.
With American flags waving in the wind right beside Trump 2020 signs, it seems like barely anyone has learned from the jingoism, the violence, the hatred. But was learning ever the point? The wildfire continues to rage, and people continue to suffer in cruel ways supported by deep roots. The fostering of close-mindedness and suppression of critical thought that billowed up like clouds of debris smoke resulted in a terror that was homegrown, not some tricky bogeyman from abroad. It is a terror that has culminated in the destruction of lives and the obliteration of common sense, and there’s just no going back.
You can decline the supersize Freedom Fries offer with your Happy Meal, sure. But when Big Daddy has force fed you blind submission to the powers that be your entire life, isn’t succumbing just so much easier?
Tags:9/11, brainwashing, de-evolution, death, freedom fries, history, humanity, idiocy, inequality, politics, propaganda, ranting, society, terrorism, the past, Very Special Episode, war
Posted in Life, Rants | 1 Comment »
Out Here
Tuesday, August 30th, 2022I’ve been away from the homestead for over a week now adjusting to the trials and tribulations of college. I must admit, it’s a very liberating feeling being left to my own devices, mentally mapping out routes to dining halls and wandering around campus when I have free time. I’m already getting a lay of the land pretty easily, and I can’t believe I’ll be showing some out of state (and in one case, out of country) friends around this not-so-little old place in just a few weeks. (Seriously, DEVOtional cannot come quickly enough.) Maybe someday younger students here will be asking me for their way around, intimidated by the many routes of getting to Eastway or unable to not keep dropping their school issued ID cards. For now, I’ve been socializing with other members of my class who are in the same boat as me, though they happen to have friends from high school lingering in the area. I’ll always be an introvert, but talking to these brand new people has been strangely refreshing recently. It’s a nice, liberating feeling being a blank slate to a whole bunch of people who, like me, are also baby faced, weird, and anxious as hell.
Even as I make connections in the real world, I’m still checking my frequented sites and social media accounts. I expected I would do less of that as I transitioned into college life, but in retrospect I feel like I’ve been going through a mental transition regarding my time on the computer all along. Ever since I began making progress towards even attending Kent in the first place, I’ve been taking the digital world less and less seriously, and I didn’t even take it too seriously to begin with. Now I look at people getting into comment section flame wars sometimes and just feel a little bit sad. I feel sad that these people, apparently, have nothing better to do than insulting people on the internet for fleeting moments of manufactured superiority. They could be learning new things, opening their minds to new experiences, and actually engaging in the real world, but they aren’t. It’s frustrating sometimes, because it feels as if so much potential is being wasted on useless, stupid arguments when the participants could have been doing something more productive in the first place. (Hey, if me being a student makes me a vital part of the conscience of America, I gotta put my honest opinion out there.)
My year-long honors English course is centered around the theme of disenfranchisement, the act of being made into an outsider. But sometimes, strangely enough, I like to feel like an outsider. I like to look at inane arguments and know that I have no place there, that there’s something much better to be doing than fighting fire with fire. I’m learning that the type of fire that actually needs to be fought can be fought with words, expression, logic, truth. I’m really grateful to have the chance to hone these skills.
Tags:comments sections, common sense brah, get off the internet, human interaction, idiocy, internet discourse, jesus, new experiences, new places, personal experiences, ranting, the internet, the real world
Posted in Life | No Comments »