Reflections, Reflections

You know that I should be working but am too tired to do so when I actually waste precious minutes of my life and soil my blog with anything to do with Paris Hilton... this apparently is her fiancé. They seem to deserve each other in their moronicness. Ah, celebrity culture...

And a blond Greek.. yuck. Manly Greeks have dark hair with dark penetrating eyes... ;-)

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Jack said (in the comments to this post):

Richard Cohen (whom I generally refuse to read) had a fairly good article in today's Washington Post about America's obsession with Paris Hilton. I wanted to tell him that no, America's not obsessed with Paris Hilton, just the American media — until I saw your weblog entry.

I found the article. Here are my comments to what he wrote:

" that same utter indifference to being a spectacle. She is buoyed by our celebrity-obsessed culture, which in itself is just an adjunct of the need to sell. "

To the point. Why does she like to appear so much, to be a "vapid celebrity," is a bit of a mystery so far. Most stupidly rich kids don't. They have better sense, but she actually wants it and works hard to have the celebrity attention.

"The shows that feature the comings and goings of the famous — the riveting saga of Brad and Angelina — are merely trying in their own way to aggregate an audience so that they can sell products through commercials. The creation of celebrities — of national brands — is an essential part of that process."

But it's more as well, it's not just on the consumerism side, it's the circus in the bread and circus equation.

"It is of a man expressing the sentiments of his generation, the lost one,"

So much has been lost in just one generation. Debasing people, privacy, sex is now such a norm, such a legitimized way of behavior for society.

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Jack said:
"Oh, well. In conclusion, you have to admit that this is a better comment than the one that just popped into my head: When's the video?"

You know, it would be easy to call you "sick" for thinking that, but I did startle for a second when I realized, on second thought, that there is actually a real possibility of this happening, given Paris' psychological profile.

"Since that stupid video came out, I haven't been able to get away from that name. It's like the entire country's infected with a disgusting disease."

Yep, the worst of capitalism with the worst of liberalism, that is the Paris Hilton cultural disease in a couple of words.

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"I wanted to tell him that no, America's not obsessed with Paris Hilton, just the American media — until I saw your weblog entry. "

Now how am I supposed to feel? :-)

What started as an inane and innocent way to blow off some stress after a hard day, by engaging in a little celebrity jab, turned out to be one more horrible contribution to this ocean of debased celebrity culture, eh? You think I have actually contributed to this idiot's celebrity status? In my defense, I have to say, they are retarded, it's not my fault. :-)

If everyone pointed out how retarded she is, she would not be a celebrity.

p.s. The funny thing is, I felt like expounding more on how retarted the couple is/looks, but I felt guilty attacking these kids when they haven't done anything to me, personally. I doubt that they will ever have even 1/1000th of this consideration for anyone in the world, including me, but still, it seemed like anything more was just a cheapshot.

At the same time, the whole celebrity culture system is not innocuous. And how she debases sex in so many ways (including this new hamburger commercial, which I have not seen) isn't innocuous either. Hilton is a more vapid variation of Madonna. Cohen was wrong when he said:

"You can be famous for being famous for a while, but ultimately you have to be famous for something. It's a rule."

He kind of meant "you have to be famous for some talent, some feat." In our world, you can be famous for being simply rich. Not just menial rich, anyone obscenely rich can be very famous. And keep being famous.

There is also the pornographic aspect of Hilton. So many people in society crave debased sex, debased human behaviors. At the moment, there are strong currents to make that quite the norm in society. And anyone who objects is attacked as "prude, backwards" or something similar.

Just so much has been lost in this respect in a couple of decades.

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On a tangent, yesterday I came across this article "Journalists must stop being in denial: bloggers are here to stay," by John Naughton in the Guardian, which is a pretty good analysis of some blogsphere phenomena.

Large swathes of the journalistic profession (though not, I am glad to say, either The Observer or the Guardian ) are still in denial about blogging. In that sense, they resemble music industry executives circa 1999, denying the significance of online file- sharing. But the claim that blogging is a threat to journalism - that inside every blogger is a 'journalist-wannabe' trying to escape - is just daft.

What's happening is a small but significant change in our media ecology. All journalists worth their salt have always known that out there are readers, listeners or viewers who know more about a story than they do. But until recently, there was no effective way for this erudition or scepticism to find public expression. Letters to the editor rarely attract public attention - or impinge on the consciousness of journalists.

Blogging changes all that. Ignorant, biased or lazy journalism is instantly exposed, dissected and flayed in a medium that has global reach. (If you doubt that, ask Dan Rather and CBS.)

Conversely, good reporting and intelligent commentary is passed from blog to blog and spreads like wildfire beyond the jurisdiction in which it was originally published. This can only be good for journalism in the long run, if only because, as my mother used to say, sunlight is the best disinfectant.

And I was thinking about the Cohen piece. If I took my content of observations about the Hilton phenomenum and polished the writing, I'm at the same level of writing that this Cohen piece is (which I don't think is high, it's not bad, but it's not a difficult piece to write). I may not be able to market my article to even the jr. highschool newspaper, because of lack of expertise in journalism selling and marketing, but as far as writing level goes...

Please note, I am not implying that Cohen (or myself) are at the pinnacles of journalism or writing, but this is exactly what the Guardian piece is about. There is a lot of writing that is produced in journalism that is not particularly clever, well-researched or high-level writing, but the authors have a monopoly of the selling and distribution means. The blogosphere is starting to crack that monopoly.

p.s. I don't know who had the terrible idea to institute the word "blogosphere"... It sounds awful with this "o" in the middle. People, the word is "blogs," so it should be "blogsphere." It doesn't matter that there is this word "atmosphere," "blogos" just sounds awful. I expect the world to change. Quickly. :-)

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