This is Psy, a self-described South Korean "loser" who said:
"My goal in this music video was to look uncool until the end. I achieved it."
I agree - the music's awful, too.
But what's important, here, is
how popular it's become. It's a really shitty song, performed by an uncharismatic artist, in that Euro disco style that's become fashionable with tasteless, brain-dead, wife beater shirt-wearing morons the world over. And that's what I want to talk about:
How, in a cultural wasteland, everything gets turned upside-down - until shit gets turned to gold - and that's when the ignorant are "happy."
You remember this, don't you? It's Beck doing "Loser," another song that became popular despite the fact that - if he had ever shown his face in a rapping contest - he would've been kicked to the curb faster than you can say the title.
No, no, no - there was none of Eminem's "8 Mile" suffering (facing physical danger while honing his skills to a knife point just to be good enough to compete) for
Mr. Scientology. Beck just spit nonsense into a microphone -
with absolutely no regard for meter - and then (probably) made a phone call to David Miscavage who (probably) beat their cult's followers, until they (probably) worked the phones relentlessly enough to get this classic example of lameness on
MTV, and the rest is history.
As a cult critic, I see this phenomena playing out all the time, in pretty much every sphere of life. It no longer matters if anything is good or bad, true or false, harmful or benign,
but only whether the impression of popularity can be brought to bear, so those too-easily influenced by the herd mentality will gradually (and gladly) move in it's direction. It appears, to those cowardly folks, being part of a group is more important than anything else in life,…including life (or any understanding of it) itself.
Reality (like - heh - Surf Music) takes a beating when we're trapped in this milieu:
To his millions of readers, Glenn Reynolds recently declared
Twilight star Robert Pattinson was a "
LOSER," after Reynolds saw signs the actor was suffering under the weight of his public betrayal by his then-girlfriend and co-star, Kristen Stewart - despite the fact Stewart was publicly
apologizing for hurting Pattinson so badly.
Not an altogether unforeseen reaction, considering
Reynolds supports the likes of Tracy Quan - a vapid woman who seems to get off on something she calls "Break-Up Porn" - and who considers it "brave" to cheat on your loved one, unloading
NewAge playlists for narcissistic cruelty like:
Saying you’re sorry often creates the temptation to drown in your own guilt,…If you fear this apologetic abyss more than you fear breaking up, it’s possible you’re a coward. It’s also possible you have good intuition,…
Love-of-destruction translation:
Forget whatever vileness you did to an innocent, including one you claimed to love and paraded before the world as such. In that - and anything else - you can have it YOUR WAY!
Compare the attitudes of Reynolds and Quan with the compassion of
The Daily Show's Jon Stewart (below) when it comes to treatment of Pattinson, the victim in this cinema-derived romantic drama:
And why not? In our current upside-down version of reality, which is just political correctness run amok, neither Glenn Reynolds (spoon-feeding millions of followers his blinkered, and destructive, outlook) or Tracy Quan (ditto - "intuition"?) are going to call anyone on such an act as the personal destruction of another.
Unless, of course, the attacker(s) is/are outside of whatever accepted group they're in.
Which brings me to the presidential race,…to be cont'd.
"We really do find pleasure in other people being mocked and slammed. The other thing is that most people consider the whole celebrity culture a little pathological. And these kind of really raw acidic attacks on these individual celebrities, to some extent, are an indictment of celebrity culture in general."
