Shooting From the Hip- #1

               I’m not afraid to say I watch some pretty vapid television on occasions. I wish I could say that I keep my brain stimulated at all times with the apex of culture but it sometimes needs a break. A snooze button or what have you.

                This is how I stumble onto E! Television (sidenote: I initially forgot the exclamation point. As if they physically can not restrain themselves from how excited they are to tell you about what sandwich Justin Bieber just ate when he was released from jail). E! Television, with the exception of Talk Soup, is the network where stupidity goes to breed and fester. In all of my human years, I have never seen a group of people so obsessed with the most trivial things. This is the network that unleashed the Kardashian plague upon us and gives the skeleton, or whatever you want to call that marionette thing that appears on your screen if you ever happen to stumble past the network, of Joan Rivers a place to reside. In other words, E Network gives Bravo a good name.

                The point of this is not to bash on E! Network. That’s very easy, and ultimately, not really that beneficial to anybody. Everyone knows that E! Network sucks. Why I bring up E! is that during one of my brain hibernations, I happened to stumble upon #RichKids of Beverly Hills. And yes that is the proper name and yes it does contain a # (hurts me even typing this) in the proper title. Inspired by a joke Instagram, oh the irony, which posted pictures of rich kids flaunting their rich lifestyles, it a show that follows around rich kids in Beverly Hills. Yep, that’s basically it. Oh, it has Magic Johnson’s gay son in it too so it has that working for it as well. But basically it’s a show about rich kids taking photos of themselves to post on the internet while cameras follow them around. Do you see the sickness in this? When asked about the concept of the show, the lead blonde, who has a name I don’t remember or care to remember or even care to look up screw journalistic integrity that’s how much I don’t care, about the concept of the show she retorted that “if you don’t share it, it might as well never occurred.”

                Think about that statement for a second. Really let it digest. You good? Now before you get to laughing and joking around about how intoxicatingly stupid this statement sound, maybe you should go check your Instagram and post the picture of the burger you just ordered. Or go on Facebook and create a Facebook movie so everyone knows how vivid your Facebook life has been. Or tweet about the apples at Trader Joe’s. Or write your culinary review on Yelp. Or even read this post on my blog.

                I’m not removing myself from the equation here. I’m just as guilty as everyone else by writing on a blog, or posting the occasional picture of my shoes (more to come by the way), or talking about the music or movies I like. I’m not throwing blame without taking some on myself. But god damn, is this generation a bunch of needy bastards. We need validation in everything we do. We post pictures of food to prove that we ate a really cool restaurant. Actually eating the food and enjoying the experience mentally is not enough. How will everyone know I ate this really cool burger if I DON’T POST IT ON THE INTERNET FOR THEM TO SAVOUR? It is not enough to rub it in everyone’s face how awesome our lives are, but the justification, that were doing this for the greater good of everyone else really sickens me.

                I’m not one for not sharing. Don’t get me wrong. Writing, at its most bare essence, is the art of sharing one’s human experience with another human in hopes of getting a response out of the other human being. Writing as its upmost is a selfish act in which the writer bares themselves, or pisses in the wind, it really depends on your view of literature, in order to gain a reaction. The work itself might have voluminous amounts of relevance to the writer, but if no one reads, no one reacts, than the attempt was futile. So, I’m all for sharing. I’m just not for this quality of over-sharing. When Twitter first surfaced I joked that, finally, we will be able to find out what everyone really thought about their mid-afternoon bowel movement. The cruel part of the joke is now we can tweet about it, post a picture with cool hipstagram effects, and share it with the thousands of our “friends” all over the internet. And we need them to like it or the action has no relevancy at all.

                Ultimately, the human experience has been erased. The aura of the story has been decimated. We have been reduced to a generation of people watching other people. Big Brother is not the enemy. It’s us.