Courtesy a tweet from Patton Oswalt, I came across Buffalo Beast's Top 50 Most Loathsome People of 2010. You can check it out at the following link. It is one of the most scathing societal indictments I've encountered in a long time. It's unashamed and completely full-speed-ahead in its relentless fervor. It shred the likes of Glenn Beck, Jenny McCarthy, Barack Obama, and Kim Kardashian, rightfully placing them together in a world that too often disassociates the different aspects of their world.
The number one most loathsome person of 2010, according to the Buffalo Beast?
You.
Here's the quote, word for word, from the article.
"Your brain’s been cobbled together over millions of years of blind evolution and it shows. You’re clumsy, stupid, weak and motivated by the basest of urges. Your MO is both grotesquely selfish and unquestionably deferential to questionable authority. You’re not in control of your life. You wear your ignorance like a badge of honor and gleefully submit to oppression, malfeasance and kleptocracy. You will buy anything. You will believe anything. You believe that evolution is a matter of belief. You likely scrolled down to #1, without reading the rest, because you’re an impatient, semi-literate Philistine who’s either unable or unwilling to digest more than 140 characters at a time. You think Epic Beard Man is a national hero and that Bradley Manning might be Eli and Payton’s brother. You believe in American exceptionalism despite the contrary, compelling and overwhelming evidence. You tacitly partake in all manner of atrocity without batting a lash. You’re actively participating in our species’ extinction and you’re either in denial or you just don’t give a shit. You escape into every sort of mind-numbing distraction and ridiculous, convoluted fantasy, so you don’t have to face the bitter, terrifying fact that your life is utterly meaningless."
The utter disdain drips off the page, but the most notable aspect of the above paragraph is just how true it reads. We're all-- myself included-- to blame for the general malaise, the utter apathy with which we seem to be approaching modern life. We've allowed Paris Hilton to gain and retain fame. We've allowed politicians to govern unchecked, ignoring their actions and taking only into consideration the ugly pundit spin and doublespeak when attempting to "educate" themselves.
As I sit here, my girlfriend and her friend are watching Teen Mom.
In my opinion, this show is one of the most disgusting portraits of modern American society; where we not only enumerate but venerate thoughtless and overprivileged youth, putting them on the covers of magazines and interviewing them on talk shows, giving some of the most ignorant among us a voice of import. Teamed with the likes of Kate Gosselin and Jim Bob Duggar, they form an overexposed trio of damaging petulance.
The type of behavior that these people demonstrate is utterly reprehensible, yet we've allowed it to be material for national television. No matter the context of their national display, we've made these people into role models; and of the worst kind.
Considering these types of fame, I can't help but agree with the Buffalo Beast article. We-- and I absolutely include myself in that number-- are the most loathsome people of 2010.
Here's the thing, if we own up to it, if we accept it, we can change it. If we acknowledge the terrible behavior we've made virtuous, if we question the choices of the people we've given power, if we take a moment out of our days to actually think about that which we are accepting into our lives, we can make ourselves less loathsome-- and hopefully the rest of the world as well.
I've owned up. Join me.
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