Ignorance is bliss

So I'm here sitting in the lab. A jerk colleague of mine just told me he got herpes from my mom. As a joke of course. It was a "mama diss". Remember the days when those used to be popular? And the funny thing, no one takes offense to it.

In fact most people don't seem to take offense to anything anymore. Being rude and offensive has become an art. I can make the most ignorant comments to my fellow lab minion Jon and he'll almost thank me for it.

Me: "Hey, slapnuts! You're stupid and ugly, and you smell like a fart, and your mom's a whore and...."
Jon: "Thank you Chris! Could I have another?"

You can insult people's families, race, religion... almost anything. But you must never insult the music they like. I can remember being called ignorant twice in my life and both times was because I had made a remark about some musician. Even jon, the most laid back dude around went apes**t after an offhanded remark about Paul McArtney.

Me: "Paul McArtney is gay!"
Jon: "THAT'S JUST IGNORANT! PAUL MCARTNEY IS THE MOST INFLUENTIAL MUSICIAN OF OUR TIME BLABLABLA HE CAN PLAY SO MANY INSTRUMENTS ALL THE MUSIC WE LISTEN TO IS ...."

He was rather irate. I really don't have anything specific against Paul McArtney's music. I was mostly trying to provoke him. I just didn't think he would lose it on me like that. He was ready to take on everyone in the lab who agreed that Paul McArtney was more suitable for older audiences.

I guess the same thing applies to movies. I've had dozens of arguments with Rez and Droopy about Star Wars Episode 3. And it always proceeds in the same way.

Me: "Episode 3 is gay! The acting is terrible and the story makes no sense!"
Vrej: "I heart that movie with all my heart! I love lightsaber fights and surfing on lava and Obi Wan."
Rezaul: "Chris, you're the only guy I know who doesn't get it! You're a Republican!"

At least twice that Republican comment came up after a Star Wars Convo. I can't remember why though. But he's quite consistent with it.

The point is, at some point in our lives people began to identify more with crappy stories and mediocre music than things like religion and family. It makes some people feel like they belong. I can remember the first instance of this when I entered high school. All of a sudden, all the people I knew who used to like hip hop and rnb decided it was no longer "cool" to like hip hop. It was cooler to like Pearl Jam and I don't know... Axel Rose.

Then as people age, the need to belong is replaced by a need to feel intelligemt. "I'm a fan of alternative, or punk, or ska! That makes me special. AND INTELLIGENT!!!" And you can probably see this irritating quality in many of your friends up until this day. When people defend music by throwing out random facts about the history of some band. They piece together bits of history and dropping names as if they're all pieces of some grand puzzle. They try to find some pattern in a mess that is an artist's work, something created while the artist was probably high on drugs or depressed or confused about something. Jbo was notorious for this.

Me: "White music is gay!"
Jbo: "Chris you're so ignorant! The White Stripes(or the vines) is like a whole new genre of music... It all started in 1989 when Red Hot Chilli Peppers blablablabla..."

Wow...so much history... almost 2 decades!

Me: "Non-violent movies are gay!"
Some jerk: "You just don't know good movies! American Beauty is the bees knees and all other sappy crap that gets nominated for oscars. I'm intelligent for liking certain movies."

And soentertainment is no longer something subjective but some matter of moral contention. A group of people will bully you into liking something that they have decided is universally good. I personally think it's all a matter of like and dislike. Sure there are good movies and bad movies, but in the long run some things speak to you and others don't, whether they've been poorly executed (from an artistic point of view) becomes almost irrelevant. It's called having an opinion, and in my opinion, people who take anything in the entertainment industry that's been produced in the last twenty years serioulsy, are all gay!

I think we're all letting ourselves be fooled. We go out there and shell out our dollars and our time to people who are providing us with a product that is simply of their own individual imagination (or a bastardization of someone elses idea). Then, we go out into the world and sequester ourselves into little groups that dress and talk a certain way, and as Rez once put it brilliantly, claim these things are an expression of our individuality. It's just a movie, written to get your money. It's just a song written by some stoned and tortured simpleton. Don't identify too strongly with it.