It seems as if all the most prominent news coverage over the last month has been concerned with Kim Kardashian and Justin Bieber. This worries me for a number of reasons, one being that the generation responsible for the popularity of these individuals will be looking after me in my old age and I don’t think I can trust them. Well, maybe they won’t be tasked with my care, but certainly their spawn, and what good can possibly come from this?
Stop me if I’m being alarmist.
Now, I’m usually the first in line to defend personal choice and the diversity of taste, but frankly, I just don’t get it. For one thing, Bieber looks all of twelve! Where does he get off calling anyone ‘baby’? That people are buying into the pint sized Canadian just confuses me.
Ms. Kardashian’s claim to fame baffles me just as much. According to Wikipedia (a credible source if ever there was one) she’s a ‘celebutante’ – a combination of celebrity and debutante. Wait, what? Do we really live in a world where there is an actual need for a word like this? This is where reality television has gotten us.
Let’s face it, Kim hasn’t done anything remarkable, she just had the good fortune of coming from a filthy rich family who happened to have their own reality television show. She’s definitely capitalised on that, but it has hardly required any stretch of the imagination on her part.
Still, she’s been lucky, and I won’t hold that against her. No, what bothers me is the idea that someone might actually look up to her, or aspire to be her. It seems like such a shallow aspiration that I just want to cry into my latte.
I’m inclined to blame MTV for the whole thing. Somewhere in the last few years it has just morphed into some ludicrous reality TV love-fest. I can’t even remember the last time I saw a music video on MTV, it must have been somewhere between an episode of ‘My Super Sweet Sixteen’ and ‘The Hills.’ Don’t even get me started on their latest attempt at entertainment, ‘Jersey Shore’. Now there’s a stereotype nightmare, if ever there was one.
Come to think of it, why are people still watching reality television? No really, why? It doesn’t even try for ‘reality’ anymore! I don’t get it, I really don’t.
I’m just terrified of waking up one day to a world overrun with Heidi Montags. No one needs that. But if vacuous spoiled rich kids with shallow dreams are constantly glorified, we’re not exactly giving anyone a fighting chance. There are so many brilliant role models out there – both real and fictional – I just find it so disappointing that it’s always the flaky ones that get all the attention.
