i read an article on cnn this morning that i found to be somewhat interesting. while i'm completely over the entire kanye thing...it still makes me think. in light of joe wilson, serena, and kanye incidents...much like the cnn columnist, i too have been plagued by mission statements of "never be that person" "never respect people like that" "never allow it to happen to other people" and so on. i think it mostly comes from my upbringing. i was taught to be respectful of others, i never raised my voice to my parents, and rudeness was something that would be called out, on the spot, if it ever occurred. my parents taught me the power of empathy. it goes along with the cliche treating others as you would want to be treated. but really, when dealing with those you deem inferior, step outside your ego before you berate them, humiliate them, emasculate them, devalue them, degrade them. would you tolerate such things if directed at you?
i hope you wouldn't. none of us are celebrities. and the actual celebrities -- we don't owe them anything. they are people on a tv or movie screen. they are the voices of our itunes. they're humans. they aren't our bosses, they aren't our saviors, so why do we treat them as such?
i don't know either.
it's funny, too. i even see a sense of entitlement on youtube. don't get me wrong: i'm on youtube, i love youtube, and there are a few people i watch and enjoy. and then there are people that just pop up time and again, that i simply sit back and wonder why. after watching a few of these select videos, i've come to a conclusion that they encapsulate my point. in short: their subscribers are their world. their view counts - their saving grace. the fact that people subscribe, follow, or whatever to their "image"...it gets them off. there's this one guy in particular that really irks me. his videos always suggest a level of sexual taboo in order to get views. in almost every video he parades around in his underwear, or at least never with a shirt on, while providing vain commentary/parodies that are almost always self-fulfilling and narcissistic. for instance, in one video he is waltzing around in his underwear, highlighting his upper body in all its "glory" while claiming how much he loves to eat, eat, eat (especially chicken nuggets) and then plugs his amateur exercise video at the end.
???
it's one hundred percent narcissism/everything-that-is-wrong-with-the-world. i realize there are far worse things plaguing society, lets keep this post in check with reality, but it's relevant to my overall point of how absurd the human race is. is he out of line or rude? no, not at all. but he's harboring the possibility of such. because he's enabled to: he's putting on a show, for you to watch. and you do, because you owe it to him. or so he thinks. he's pleading for attention, he's selling himself as an object, and he's advancing his cause(s) (i.e. i'm better than you, i'm in great shape but i'm talking about how much i love to eat bad food, i have something i want you to buy and you probably will consider doing so bc aren't i cute?, and don't you just love looking at me? keep dreaming and you could have me!).
it's nauseating. and be sure to notice that i said "it's" nauseating. the man behind the video is more than likely a good human being. i don't know him personally, and i don't think i really need to, but let's seperate who he is from the work he promotes. i don't want to sound hyprocritical by acknowledging a rise in rude, arrogant behavior in the world and then write a blog post where i say something rude or combative. that's not the case at all - i'm interpreting his work as being completely dissatisfactory and it's something i think is very ugly.
there's a difference and i hope you get it. if not, you're free to stand by your own perception.
but, people, we need to check ourselves. our egos are out of control. stop with the attention thing. stop with the entitlement. stop degrading others because you can. free speech? certainly. free entitlement? absolutely not.
can we have boundaries? the world owes us nothing. we owe it to ourselves and each other to be a little more humble and to come down off our self-appointed pedestals.
long-story short: we all love to have an opinion, but some of us just go the wrong direction in sharing it. don't let it be you. don't let the tween agenda, the kanye agenda, the perez agenda, the us weekly agenda, the hills agenda, the youtube fame agenda--any and all of these entitled/arrogant/rude/extreme agendas should not become our new social soapbox. it's sad and disheartening, and i'll personally set an example of how to get back to the basic fundamentals of life: be a good person and love one another like you would want to be loved.
here's an excerpt of the cnn article:
Thanks to Joe, Kanye, Serena, and other misfits, a lot of people are talking about how society is undergoing a rash of rudeness.
That's not completely accurate. It's more like a rise in self-centeredness.
Among the self-centered: Congressman Joe Wilson, rapper Kanye West and tennis star Serena Williams. But this phenomenon isn't limited to celebrities and previously anonymous backbenchers in Congress basking in their 15 minutes.
There are many people out there, in all walks of life, who think they're more significant than they really are. Plagued with an exaggerated sense of self-importance, they feel entitled to do whatever they want, whenever they want to do it no matter whom it hurts.
The self-centered rarely think about the consequences because they're too busy claiming what they see as their rightful place in the spotlight. And when they're criticized for letting their narcissism get the best of them and face the wrath of their colleagues or the disapproval of their fans, they might apologize. But, even then, they often don't do a very good job of it because their heart's not in it.
They don't feel genuine remorse but they've been told by their press secretaries and publicists to fake it as best they can as part of the damage control. They mouth the words because they consider it to be in their own best interests. It's always about them.
So how did this virus of self-centeredness get in our national bloodstream?
Others blame the look-at-me-I'm-so-special culture bred by egocentric social networking sites such as Facebook, My Space, YouTube, and Twitter. With thousands of "followers" of some sort or another, caring enough to take time from their own day to shadow you through yours, is it any wonder that the followed are getting big heads as they "tweet" what they had for breakfast?
But I'm old-school. I believe that what matters most is not what happens at your computer but around your dinner table. When we consider the reasons for this rash of self-centeredness, I think most of it comes down to just one thing: bad parenting.
