I’ve been ranting for years about the way postings on social media offend all notions of decency, talent, intimacy, and intelligence. Such commentaries as “Why I Hate Twitter,” February 1, 2013, “Keep Your Selfies to Yourself … Puhleeease!” April 7, 2014, and “Facebook Friends? Try Facebook’s Guinea Pigs,” July 8, 2014, attest to this.
I didn’t think this kind of cultural decay could get any worse than MTV perverting its mission years ago by featuring more “reality TV” than music videos. But the real world of today, in which a no-talented, botoxed and siliconed woman like Kim Kardashian is more celebrated than Meryl Streep or Cindy Crawford ever was, makes The Real World seem worthy of Masterpiece Theatre.
I hasten to clarify, however, that I don’t begrudge Kim and her family their success, no matter how contrived. On the contrary, I admire the zeal and esprit de corps with which they exploit the public’s insatiable lust for simple-minded, prurient fluff.
No, my beef is with the putative guardians of mainstream media – who now troll social media for snarky tweets and photoshopped instagrams to broadcast as news. Which brings me to the latest edition of Rolling Stone magazine, featuring Kim Kardashian on its cover.
In this case, though, I cannot possibly summon the outrage and commensurate profanity to match that which critically acclaimed singer/activist Sinead O’Connor summoned to properly decry this cover.
Accordingly:
What is this c–t doing on the cover of Rolling Stone? Music has officially died. Who knew it would be Rolling Stone that murdered it? Simon Cowell and Louis Walsh can no longer be expected to take all the blame. Bob Dylan must be f–king horrified. #BoycottRollingStone
(The Independent, July 15, 2015)
Unfortunately, calling for a boycott of Rolling Stone assumes that it still has readers who are more interested in talent than celebrity. In fact, this once-venerable magazine lost its way so long ago, I suspect the only people who read it these days are people who would vote Kim the most admired woman in the world. Only that explains this:
Nothing was more distasteful and dismaying in this respect than seeing the Boston Marathon bomber on the cover of Rolling Stone, channeling the smug, self-satisfied look of rock icon Jim Morrison….
(“PSA: Media, Stop Making Celebrities of Mass Murderers,” The iPINIONS Journal, April 1, 2015)
In The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon famously noted that “bizarreness masquerad[ing] as creativity” proved a harbinger of things to come.
God help us….
Related commentaries:
Twitter…
Selfies…
Facebook…
PSA media…