Books are my new bff

I turned on the tv the other night and witnessed the decline of our society personified (as it seems I far too often do nowadays when I turn the tv on). I almost couldn't believe what I was seeing, though simultaneously I wasn't all that surprised, which is, I guess, further evidence of the aforementioned societal decline.

The culprit is the newest weapon in the arsenal (operative word being "ars") of that strange and tacky phenomenon known as reality television, and its name is "Paris Hilton is my new bff". I mean come on, the title alone automatically screams "crap" and knocks at least 5 points off of your IQ. And I don't think IQ is the strong suit of any of the people on this show, otherwise there's no way of explaining why someone would waste their time - I certainly would never waste my time on it, aside from the 10 minutes I viewed mainly due to a kind of morbid fascination at how such shows end up getting air time. In that short time, I could feel my brain slowly turning to mush (though not quite to the consistency of the brains of Paris or her potential "bff's"...didn't quite watch long enough).

The title is bad enough, but then on top of it this show stars Paris Hilton with Perez Hilton as her sidekick. Basically, it's like "Flavor of Love" but instead of looking for a new mate (or prostitute, depending on how you look at it), Paris is trying to pick her new, well, bff. And also I think Flava Flav may actually be slightly more intelligent and interesting than Paris is. The show "blurb" describes the contestants as "aspiring socialites" (or something) and may I just say how nice it is to see young women aiming high and setting rewarding goals for themselves. When I tuned in, they were unveiling the results of an apparent vote of who in the group is the most and least fake (though I could have picked out a few fake ones just by looking, if you know what I mean), which is so hilarious to me considering the show itself revolves around a skinny, plastic, barbie doll who makes her living pretending to be a real person.

One girl, who was apparently voted one of the "least fake" said the following (not necessarily verbatim): "I mean, I licked tongues with a random dude, and pretended to make out with a girl, getting steamy on camera...it's been a good week for me". How sad is that that this girl rates a good week by the number of lewd and tacky things she can fit in. And what saddens me even more is that there are probably hundreds of young girls watching that thinking how cool it is and wishing they could do it too. What kind of world do we live in that young girls have no one to look up to close to their own age except boozing actresses and spoiled botoxed socialites? What kind of world do we live in that has allowed people like Paris and Perez (and numerous others) to have exponentially more than what should have been 15 minutes of fame? People think we've come so far, we're so much more advanced than we used to be, things are so much more civilized now when evidence to the contrary is merely a remote click or a newsstand browse away.

The thing is though, programs like this are on tv because people want to watch them. We get a sick kind of entertainment from these mindless programs and the self-absorbed antics of out-of-control celebrities. We buy into the culture, and therefore perpetuate it. I could go on all day listing theories as to WHY we have this fascination, but it doesn't really matter. What matters is that we have it, and there's no reason why we should. What we should have a fascination for are things like helping make the world better, pride, intelligence, individuality, selflessness, innovation.

Most of us do appreciate these things of course, but the problem is that celebrity obsession (and other tasteless fare) are slowly being elevated to the same level of importance in some ways. I am generalizing about people of course - I do believe that most people in the world are rational and intelligent and don't pay attention to any of that pop-culture crap aside from an occasional glance at a tabloid or 10 minute peek at a reality program, however (as with most things in life) it only takes a few.

Bottom line is, I was disgusted about this show. However, even though the fact that we live in a world with questionable values distresses me, I take comfort in the fact that we also live in a world that allows me to click "off" on my remote and go pick up a good book.