The Beauty in Breaking All the Rules

Today’s post is a writing challenge. This is how it works: participating bloggers picked 4 – 6 words or short phrases for someone else to craft into a post. All words must be used at least once and all the posts will be unique as each writer has received their own set of words. That’s the challenge, here’s a fun twist; no one who’s participating knows who got their words and in what direction the writer will take them. Until now.

My words are:

cahoots ~ fox ~ recoup ~ stickler ~ wistful

It was submitted by: https://wanderingwebdesigner.com/blog

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I used to be a big stickler for using proper grammar for even the most casual communication. But then I grew the fuck up a little.

Ok let me say I don't ever think it's a problem if in your personal life you choose to use proper grammar all the time. Most of the time I still do. What changed for me and what I'm really talking about is dismissing and/judging other people for not doing so. A preference is one thing; mocking others over a preference is quite different. I want to talk about both these issues--grammar and preference. And I hope the time you spend reading this is more agreement than eyerolls, but we'll see. I mean it's about to get real geeky in here...

I've been rewatching Star Trek: The Next Generation lately (see... Geeky). And besides me developing a weird infatuation for Beverly Crusher, the fox of the future, it's been a fun way to think about people and humanity and social issues. Bodily autonomy, what makes a human different from anyone else, what might society look like without classes... And it is very much a intergalactic world without slang. Beverly do be talking all posh. Oh there's an alien race that communicates using an old epic poem about a battle the entire planet remains wistful about, but that's more or less about not treating someone less than you just because the two of you don't speak the same language at all which is a little different than bending and eroding rules to carve out a spot for yourself in a world where the dominant people carved and eroded societies and their languages in the name of imperialism. (Don't get me wrong, a whole lot of us need that lesson about different langues, too, but I still think that's different than slang and code switching.) It's interesting that on a show with unlimited races of peoples/aliens there is never an advanced culture that has developed localized slang in generations. To the people who created this show, in this world access to standards of grammar and syntax in the English language are equitable. Class is no longer an issue in Star Trek. Those issues have been resolved. And in that way, these creators decided slang would be eliminated. Everyone would have equal access to the same education and the same ability to grasp the written word, and humans, at least, would be more homogeneous when it comes to language as an aspect of culture. I do think judging someone for poor grammar at least in the U.S. is classist and ableist or can be as is the seeming belief of Star Trek's creative team. Our schools' funding is dependent on local taxes. It creates wide gaps in funding depending on the values of property in between the imaginary lines that create a school district, and unfortunately the powers that be have a way of keeping poor folks especially poor folks of color out of schools where a lot of higher class groups send their kids. Teachers already spend out of their own pockets even in some of the more funded districts with no way to recoup their money. So yeah in that way I think Star Trek is right about things. Maybe equal access and elimination of classes does change the evolution of language.

But that doesn't take into account how much fun it is to say fuck the rules every now and then.

Like that. And like that again. I'm not supposed to, according to the rules, use just one sentence in a paragraph. I'm not supposed to start a sentence with a conjuction unless it is following a sentence and makes a complete sentence. And then I followed it with two dependent clauses that should never stand alone the way I left them. We've become a society that communicates almost solely online at times, and because of that, we have learned to write/type with affectations and put fun into it. Words are written in distinct ways that change the tone and connotation of what's being said without it having to be heard. Slang words spread far more quickly beyond the small groups where they begin. Language evolves as we do with the times, with our needs, and because some of us want to have fun with our words when and where we can. That's part of the beauty of language. And that evolution does not mean you can't prefer to use grammar by the rules entirely nor does it mean there aren't spaces where a standard might be necessary so we all understand what is being said and the importance of the meaning behind it. But a preference one way or another outside of those limited situations should never come with judgement about the other person's worth or ability. It shouldn't mean we have to discount what someone has said because they don't follow arbitrary, prescriptive rules. If you can understand what's being said *if* it is being said to your that's all that matters and even if you can't understand, a polite request for explanation is fine. And if it isn't said to you, then it's none of your business anyway.

What I'm trying to convey here is that even if we somehow manage to escape the inherent faults of capitalism and have a classless society where everyone's needs are met, we won't be without slang, without linguistic cultural experiences, without blendings of languages and meaning, without new rules we can joyously break. I think slang is inherently part of existence and has as much value as precise academic speech and purists' opinions. The writers of Star Trek even understood that when writing Picard's detective noir episodes. The slang was part of the experience. As it should be.

So now that we all know we don't have to be in cahoots with the rule makers and justify mockery because of arbitrary standards, I hope you appreciate the more descriptive language around you.

Oh and live long and prosper. 🖖🏻

There Can Be Pleasure Without Guilt

Chuck Klosterman has taken a hard stance on the phrase “guilty pleasures” calling it counterproductive to feel the need to be embarrassed by something you love. If, in fact, you watch cheesy 80s movies like Sixteen Candles and gorge on candy every time you feel awful like I do, according to his logic, you should never feel guilty about doing so because you did, by all accounts, enjoy yourself.

I have come to the conclusion over the last few years that Klosterman, though entertaining, is pretty fucking pretentious and full of shit.

Is it really so unbelievable that a person can recognize how terrible something is yet love it anyway? Take the Rocky franchise, for example. The acting is terrible. The plots are, well, terrible after the first one and basically just a repeat storyline that just keeps happening over and over again. But, I still watched them all back to back over the last week. Somewhere, some part of me knows how fucking godawful these movies are in terms of their artistic value but I can’t help myself. They HAVE to be watched.

As a feminist, I know with every fiber of my being that music that objectifies women is inherently a bad thing and contributes directly to certain aspects of social inequality between genders (normalizing negative attitudes), but I still know all the lyrics (almost) to Dr. Dre’s The Chronic 2001. Even the song about not making a ho a housewife. That one. yeah. And, yes, it’s a bit fucking embarrassing that at times I still listen to it.

So, by definition, if I feel guilty for something that I simultaneously enjoy, does that not make it a guilty pleasure? I’d have to say so and that maybe, Klosterman, King of the Hipsters, just likes bucking mainstream trends enough to make an asinine comment about something that everyone experiences but that, in his pretentiousness, he thinks he can rise above and apply some sort of new logic-defying spin on.

Chuck, it’s okay, man. Let us have our guilty pleasures. We kind of like that phrase. Deal.

But, that leads me to another question. What happens when our feelings of guilt about something we want or something we want to enjoy gets in the way of pleasure? I think that’s the problem with women and orgasms.

According to meta-analyses of 80 years worth of research on the subject, only about a quarter of women consistently have orgasms during vaginal intercourse. One fourth. That’s all. About half of women have orgasms some of the time. 20 percent or so have orgasms never or rarely during sex. 20 whole fucking percent (no pun intended). And 5% never have orgasms period. 

It doesn’t matter the size of the man’s penis, how attracted the woman is, the relationship the two have, or what feelings she has for him…these stats still apply across the board when these factors are controlled for.

My brain can’t even begin to comprehend what life would be like for the rest of the world if I couldn’t have orgasms. There is no known apocalyptic scenario which could compare to the sheer amount of destruction and rage that would rain down on this place if I didn’t have the ability to achieve that sweet, sweet release in multiples during sex or on my own. That’s just the way it is.

The difference between the small 25% of women who do have regular orgasms is in the brain.

There’s a major nerve running from the brain to the cervix connecting female sexuality directly to brain activity. This “superhighway” of nerves is unique to each woman and changes what each individual is stimulated by…but the thing that remains the same is that the brain is directly related to the way a woman experiences sex. For men, it’s quite a bit more simplistic. There is a similar grid of nerves in the pelvis that creates a web of pleasure that circulates the penis. No brain to dick direct connection.

There have been many theories based on such statistics and the findings about female sexual anatomy. Women need more mental stimulation, she needs more foreplay, she needs to be touched, she needs clitoral stimulation, she needs this, she needs that. We’re not all the fucking same, okay? The science tells you that. It’s right there in black and white—we each have our own maze of nerve connections that is different for every women. We don’t have the same wants and needs and desires. Every female expressive person doesn’t suddenly became one big blog of Stay Puft vaginas called SHE that can all be tickled the same damn way just because some “professional” wants to write a shitty little article for The Huffington Post.

The problem, to me, runs deeper than figuring out what women want, and I suspect it’s inherently cultural.

See, when we live in a society where women’s sexuality is demonized, where women live by this double

standard where they are prudes for not fucking and sluts when they do fuck, where women are called sluts for sleeping with a man while the man is awarded with status and praise, the brain to vagina connection is warped, distorted, severed for some apparently… Social norms dictate that women are not supposed to enjoy sex. It’s a running gag in sitcoms and movies—wives don’t enjoy sex; they don’t have sex. It’s a common joke on the Internet. Our entire belief system has put so much pressure on women to live by this strange, morbid way of thinking that says we’re obligated to have sex but we’re sluts when we do.

Is it no wonder so many of us have issues with having sex? How is a person supposed to get over that mental roadblock that tells them they aren't supposed to enjoy what she's doing because it's "naughty" or "dirty" or "slutty?"

It’s a cultural mindset which is not going to phase itself out anytime soon, but it starts with ourselves. By “ourselves” I mean with women, but in the same grain, it is with all our partners and our friends and everyone reading this blog. The idea that a woman, to put it bluntly, a woman who loves to fuck is simply that—a woman who unabashedly loves sex (or making love if that’s your thing). There’s nothing wrong with that no matter how much society demonizes and victim blames and backs us into a corner where we are “supposed” to and obligated to give ourselves but not supposed to love it, to really feel ourselves let go and let our toes curl, to nurture our fantasies.

There’s nothing wrong with making love to your partner.

There’s nothing wrong with a one night stand as long as you’re safe.

There’s nothing wrong with having a friend with benefits and loving every minute you spend naked and sweaty together.

There is absolutely no guilt at all that should be inherently tied to sex for women. I would hope that every woman has the chance in her lifetime to navigate her own labyrinth of sexuality and discover every little nuance of herself…to find that direct connection to the brain and figure out how to make that superhighway light up over and over and over again (4 or 5 times in 15 minutes is a great goal. trust me).

I love Ash over More Than Cheese and Beer for putting up with the crazy way I interpret these prompts some week. Who knew I'd be talking about the female orgasm this week? I didn't until I sat down and the words came (no pun intended). Thanks for reading and I hope you'll read the rest of the link ups today.

Cultural Misogyny

Rejection has been a theme over the past week for good reason. Elliot Rodgers felt the need to gun down 6

people before turning the gun on himself because he was so often rejected by the opposite sex that he found it to be unfair and needed to punish those he thought were responsible for his unhappiness. He was rejected so often he became miserable, full of hate, and violent and decided the only way to right these wrongs was to take lives—to make people pay.

That’s tragic. It truly is. But, when it all comes down to it, rejection is not the real reason Rodgers committed the atrocious acts he did.

We’ve all been rejected at one time or another and many of us handle it well or somewhat well. But to dismiss this case as one where a mentally ill man couldn’t handle rejection completely ignores the underlying cultural issues at work that have been creating an antagonistic environment for women throughout history that continues, obviously, to plague us today. So, at face value, it may seem like this is a story about a lone mad man who couldn’t stand rejection and ultimately and tragically reacted with violence, but once you take a closer look at things, you being to see the sense of entitlement at work—an attitude that women can tell you is all too common in so many men with whom we have contact.

Rodgers said he wanted to kill women for never finding him attractive enough to fuck him and for ruining his

time at college. He wanted them to sleep with him but the fact that these women slept with other people made them sluts. It’s the double-edged sword issue that women have been facing for ages. If we’re sexually active, we’re sluts, but if we won’t sleep with someone, we’re prudes. It’s this cultural idea that we’re not in full ownership of our own bodies. Being in control of ourselves, doing what we want with who we want is such a foreign fucking concept that instead of being “allowed” to do what we want without commentary and with the same respect given to men in the same situations, we have people constantly policing our bodies and telling us what we should be doing with them.

To add to that, we’re expected to dole out sex to men who want to sex us without giving any thought to whether or not we’re attracted to the men in question.

No seriously. Think about it. Think about every fucking time you’ve heard the “friendzone” or heard a guy complaining that “nice” guys finish last…

In every single instance, if you really think about it, you have a man complaining that a female friend of his whom he attempted to hook up with through falsified niceties and friendship strategies had no interest in fucking or dating him. In essence, he cannot handle the fact that this person only thought of him as a friend (oh the fucking horror of actually being a friend to a woman) and was not sexually attracted to him. It is not a simple case of lack of attraction, it is now the fault of all women everywhere because we only want to fuck assholes who act like jerks and lie to us to try to get in our panties because we’re bitches.

But, wait…if this guy was putting on a bullshit act to be our friend just to try to get in our panties isn’t he the

asshole who lied to us? And we didn’t sleep with *him* so.... Kinda blows that theory right out of the water. It’s not seen that way though. All across media platforms the guy gets the girl. The hero gets his babe. The hook up always happens. In books. In television. In movies. Women are objects to be pursued not persons to be respected and certainly not people with whom to be platonic friends. Ultimately, we will come around, right, guys? We’ll jump on that dick before the end of the movie if you just push and push and push until we see the error of our ways. No means negotiate. “Let’s be friends” is a death sentence, and when it happens, it’s a reason to be angered and prove your manhood through namecalling and threats or through actual violence.

Or if you’re like my stalker, just keep on texting and tracking a girl down for going on 12 years even though she consistently ignores you. She’s bound to come around at some point.

Rejection sucks. It never feels great. There’s always a sting to it. But, the difference in feeling rejected and what Elliot Rodgers’ and many, many other men feel and believe is the idea that they’re somehow owed a woman’s affections--that the world owes it to them to bestow upon them the woman they want no matter how that particular woman feels about them. Rejection then turns into injustice and that attitude becomes wholly dangerous as we saw this past week and have seen numerous times before unfortunately.

The strong urge I have to add a not all men disclaimer in this piece to avoid the same bullshit I’ve experienced while talking about this on Facebook just goes to show how bad it’s gotten, too. We’re living in this world where women are consistently objectified and seen as conquests, where men feel justified in lashing out when a woman is not interested in being their plaything, and where seemingly decent guys feel the need to put their defenses up and scream and shout “not me” every time a woman attempts to share her experiences.

It has to stop. Women need to be heard so we can finally start addressing the misogynistic culture that

shapes people like Elliot Rodgers into murderers. We shouldn’t have to sleep with a man out of fear of being slaughtered or raped for saying no. We shouldn’t have to be afraid to go on a date or be approached by a man in a fucking parking lot. We shouldn’t have men trying to shut us up when we want to share what we’ve gone through and what other women go through. I was told before I wrote this that men don’t have it easy and that blaming certain actions on culture doesn’t address that. But, no one has an easy life. If you’re doing it right, it’s going to be a series of challenges and obstacles that help you grow. The problem right now is that we live in a culture where on top of the experiences we all have in life that challenge us to be stronger, women of all races and ages and sexual orientations face these unique-to-us situations that make life harder and scarier than it has to be and, at every turn, bringing about awareness on this issue gets shut down.

And that’s fine. I’ll just get louder.

Who’s with me?

This has been part of Sunday Confessions with More Than Cheese and Beer. The prompt was rejection. Check out hers and the rest of the contributors' posts! It's always fun to see how each person takes and interprets their posts. 

Secret Subject Swap

Secret Subject Swap is hosted by Baking in a Tornado. She lets bloggers submit writing prompts then divides them between us. We all post our responses on the same day at the same time and try to generate discussions between ourselves. It’s a challenge and a great way to promote one another. This is my first time. I’m a total Secret Subject Swap virgin. I hope it is as good for you as it was for me.

My subject was submitted by the always lovely Hot Ash from More Than Cheese and Beer.

"St Patrick's Day is coming up soon! They say everyone is Irish on St. Paddy's day...but what heritage are you really and what do you feel are the most notable traits of the people? Are there stereotypes, and are they true?"

Given my pale skin, freckles, and the red hairs that always grew in my dad’s burly beard, I am inclined to believe there is some Irish in my family somewhere along the line. My maiden name (I never changed it back after getting divorced) is Smith which does have roots in both England and Ireland, so it’s quite possibly the truth.

This is something that has never really been a big issue for me. I’ve never researched it nor has anyone in my family (not to my knowledge anyway). I think it’s probably like that for a lot of people who grew up the way I did—poor. We weren’t poor in a shanty kind of way. We had a roof over our heads that was a sound structure my father built with his own hands. We didn’t go without food or clothes, but life wasn’t comfortable most of the time especially given how much money my dad spent on drugs and alcohol. There were plenty of family fights over the lack of money and second mortgages and addictions. There were probation fees and attorneys’ fees for the times my dad got himself into trouble for possession and distribution. There were times when money had to be borrowed from my grandparents who would give it just to hold it over my family's head that they had done so. We weren't so poor that I went to bed starving at night, but we weren't better off than that by very much.

I never really understood the whole big deal about it until I was old enough for kids at school to make fun of my clothes…kids I had been friends with in my earlier years of school suddenly couldn’t be my friend. And the only friends I had were other poor kids. No one ever really cared what my heritage was. I was just a poor white kid living in the South. That’s all anyone ever saw.

By the time I was old enough to get past that, I had bigger things going on in my life. A lot of other things. I was raped at 13. I had leftover anxiety issues from parents and grandparents always putting me down. I was angry over my mom moving on so fast after leaving my dad and from my dad bringing in woman after woman that made it her mission in life to compete with me for his attention even though he never gave me any positive attention in the first fucking place. I was tired of never being seen or heard. I was beaten down, hurt, and confused. I alienated myself socially. And, I numbed the pain with alcohol and drugs. Anything was better than the way I felt. There was nothing in my life that honestly made me give a shit where my family came from by that point. I didn’t and still don’t even talk to most of them.

The more salient cultural perspective that remained a concern for me was socioeconomic status. It’s hard to escape being poor when you grew up that way. My lineage was one of low class, white trash and that’s what stuck. That comes with a highly negative stigma much in the way my accent does. I don’t know that people who didn’t grow up in poor families will understand how hard it is to break away from it...how it pervades every aspect of your life and constantly threatens to pull you under the water you're barely treading like a weighted backpack caught around your throat. The stereotypes that we’re lazy, that we expect handouts, that we’re nasty and ignorant and uncultured are not, even in general, true. There are so many people who have walked in shoes so similar to mine that struggle hard, who work hard, who are wickedly intelligent and who strive to break free of the mold placed upon us by way of our parents’ then our own earnings. None of those things define us despite how often those labels get placed upon our persons.

The most notable traits of my people, the people of all races, genders, and ethnicities that I feel so much closer to because we get it…we really get it, is that we have a passion for life that cannot be denied and keep on trucking no matter how tall the obstacles our government and the wealthy put in our paths. We may no longer believe in the American Dream, but you will not find us laying down and giving up on living our lives to the very fucking fullest.

Give me your tired and poor any day of the week, America…my people.

90210: My Generation, Baby

I have done quite a bit of reflecting over life up to this point in the last few years. I’ve become nostalgic for the days of my youth and filled my DVD library with cartoons from the 80s and 90s (When there's trouble you call DW. If you know what that's from, perhaps the two of us should get dangerous), and bought a number of toys I had or wanted when I was a kid. Yes, I sleep with Fraggle Rock characters on or beside my bed. So what? Yes, I have a Pound Puppy and still know all the lyrics to the Animaniacs theme song. And, I still have a crush on Raphael from TMNT.

Nostalgia led to reflection about my peers, and ultimately, I’ve become increasingly interested in the behaviors of these peers and in American culture in general—the drives and motivations of my generation or at least those so-called Millinneals born on the cusp of Generation X . Unfortunately, what I’ve found is a pervasive lack of humility, almost total self-absorption, a detachment from learning and knowledge, and rampant apathy. It’s not everyone, but it certainly seems to be a common, embarrassing trend. And, I’ve come to blame, at least in part, the primetime drama Beverly Hills 90210.

If you’re like me, you can open up your Facebook, Google+, Twitter, or whatever your social networking poison may be and find incredible amounts of bullshit. There’s constant complaints about every little change these sites make, for one thing. This basically amounts to griping about a free lunch which we all should know is a little absurd. In your feed, you’ll find relationship drama and hidden messages in status updates directed towards someone that the poster doesn’t have the guts or maturity to confront face to face. You’ll find people who make fake profiles to be able to escape unhappy relationships for awhile. Bragging about material possessions is as commonplace as gripes about not having enough material possessions. While, at least in my experience, someone with goals who is motivated to have a successful career, has a desire to learn, or has productive, enriching hobbies is very scarce.

I’ve also found that people my age, give or take a few years, seem to have very little success in relationships. I might know one couple who has been together more than a few years and is still happy, but more times than not people would rather be miserable with someone than learn to be content with themselves. Most people I know including myself are divorced, and the others fight constantly, do the breakup-makeup routine, or need antidepressants and/or drugs to achieve any sort of stability with one another. If you can't be happy, numb yourself until you don't care, right?

Here’s where the blaming begins.

Beverly Hills 90210 originally aired in 1990. I was born in ’81, so that puts me as a preteen/teen when the show hit its peak. The same is true for people near my age--20-somethings and 30-somethings alike. The show was marketed as  a primetime teen drama, the first of its kind. It’s since revolutionized television making these sorts of shows an entertainment staple for the last few decades.

The plot of the show focuses on a group of teens in “dramatic” situations set in posh Beverly Hills, California (as the name so creatively suggests). These kids are all attractive and live in upper middle class neighborhoods. These kids and their families have absolutely nothing in common with mainstream America. They do, however, represent an ideal which only succeeds in strengthening their appeal. The point, seemingly, was to have individuals who the common folk could look up to face a number of social issues such as unplanned pregnancy, AIDS, drug use, etc in an effort to help the viewing public cope with these problems more constructively in their own lives while simultaneously providing exemplary entertainment. The creators of the show really got this whole idea very wrong.

The characters of 90210 were supposed to be a very close-knit group of friends who all attended high school together. Apparently, said creators’ idea of close-knit friendship is vastly different from mine. I consider friends to be people who care for one another, strive to help each other, and who find enjoyment in each others’ company. To be considered “close-knit,” I’d say these friends would be as close or closer than family. On the show, these characters were constantly in turmoil with themselves. Friends became enemies and vice versa in an hour timeslot. Relationships began, ended, and became rattled with infidelity. Gossip was rampant, and the kids’ proved themselves to be spoiled brats. Not one of the characters that came and went over the years was someone a parent would want their child to idolize—something that was inescapable considering these are television characters who are beautiful, wealthy, and desired. In the season’s pilot, Brenda, the character played by Shannon Doherty, lies about her age to seduce a guy well into his 20s while she is just 16. The next episode shows the group to be extremely shallow and materialistic with Brenda in the lead. And the rest of the season involves characters who are liars, law breakers, and backstabbers. Then when the show actually tackles a social issue like AIDS, the discussion of safe sex only hints towards the entire group being sexually active, and by the end of the show, Brenda does sleep with Dylan (played by Luke Perry). In the very first season, girls were shown how to be vapid, manipulative, and sexually irresponsible at the very least. That’s not to mention the crimes, sex, scandals, emphasis on material wealth, lies, addictions, and more involving the other characters over the years. Nothing is taboo with this group from sleeping with your best friend’s boyfriend, to screwing your teacher, to breaking into a school to change grade with none of that coming with any real consequences

Is this really any different from daytime soap operas? No and yes.

Daytime soap operas have always been ripe with extramarital affairs, fights, backstabbing, manipulation, and overly dramatic bullshit. Everyone in the rather small casts would ultimately end up screwing everyone else unless the person was a known blood relative with no regard for anyone else involved. Consider Victor Newman on The Young and the Restless. He has been married to 8 different women sometimes multiple times and had various affairs with other women including with his own son’s former wife and the mother of his grandchildren. These shows are meant to be intensely dramatic for sheer entertainment value just as primetime dramas, but they’re on during the day and focus mostly on an adult audience, mainly housewives. Even primetime dramas like Dallas were focused on adults and had little appeal for younger generations.

With 90210 and the advent of teen dramas, the focus was drawing in a younger crowd, and they worked. Scores of young girls were able and more than willing to drool over Jason Priestly and Luke Perry while envying and copying the characters played by Shannon Doherty and Tori Spelling. The show aired after school was over and after homework was likely to have been completed but not so late as to concern parents about letting even their 10-12 year olds watch it.

Those early preteen and teen years —the years which my peers would have been watching 90210—are pretty impressionable ones. Personalities are budding, hormones are changing, and the brain is becoming more fully developed yet still not able to realize between an entertainment figure and a role model. Independence becomes more important as does the idea of romantic relationships. Being influenced by characters on a show like 90210 can make some major changes in the forming self. In my time reflection, I’ve seen how deeply that influence can cut.

I find I’m surrounded by a culture which approves of people keeping the tags on clothes to show off the brand and who are continuously trying to gain success and happiness through material possessions. Teen pregnancy has become a commodity which is glamorized on television. Teen moms make 6 figure incomes to act like complete white trash in front of a massive world-wide audience. Divorce rates continue to climb, and America continues to have the highest rates of depression. Children carry cell phones and spend their days eating spoonfuls of cinnamon for youtube videos instead of visiting museums. Jersey Shore gives us a glimpse of “reality” these days by proving people have become a real version of a 90210 cast. All in all, the things I see every time I open a social network are reminiscent of 90210 and the shows created in its image over the last 21 years.

So.

What can be done?

Not much I’m afraid, but really I have to send a big thank you to Brenda, Brandon, Kelly, Donna, Andrea, Steve, Dylan, and David. Thanks, guys, for showing us the art of being fake.