[Television] Don’t Make Stupid Children Stupider

(Stupider is really a word?)

Two shows have recently had episodes that really annoyed me.

On an episode of Hannah Montana, Miley fails her driving test and can’t take it again for a while, so she decides to go back and take it again as Hannah. Did it not occur to her that even if she manages to pass it this time—as though she has improved by not practicing in the day since she failed it—that she would be getting a Hannah Montana license? Did it not occur to her that she would not be able to use it as Miley, and that she could not show it off at school? Duh!

Soon after, Secret Life of the American Teenager did an episode where Amy and Ben decided to elope, but being minors, had to get fake IDs to do so. Did it not occur to them that their so-called marriage is nothing more than a frace, amounting to no more than a school play? The marriage is not legal in any way since Amy and Ben did not get married, but rather the 40+ year-old people named in their fake IDs (why didn’t they at least use their own names?)

Yes, you can write these episodes because most younger kids are probably not going to realize how dumb it is, but that just makes it worse. By providing little kids with this sort of scenarios, their logic and reasoning abilities will develop badly.

Don’t make dumb kids dumber.

[Sociology] Beg the Rich, Not the Poor

Another thing that bothers me along the lines of this post is with television commercials asking for money. It is really annoying that they put those commercials on basic cable instead of premium channels. Beg people who have money, not people who don’t. Only a moron would beg for money at the bus stop instead of at the Mercedes dealership.

[Television :: Reality Shows] Why Would You Brag About Being the Worst?

As if reality shows weren’t bad enough, there’s a couple of Canadian ones called Canada’s Worst Handy Man and Canada’s Worst Driver.

Why on Earth would they make a show to brag about the stupidest people? They are glorifying idiocy—then again, it’s not exactly a new practice: witness all the air-head starlets.

Worse than that they are making being stupid look like a good thing is that the show is based on a faulty premise. It’s illegal for competitors to throw matches and competitions for a reason: because the outcome is not dependent on skill and it is completely predictable. These shows are the same as throwing a game; they have people do bad jobs. It’s pretty much always easier to be bad at something than to be good at it, so how can the viewers have any confidence in the shows at all? How do you know that they really are that bad and not just pretending (which would make the show pretty lame)?

I can suck at carpentry and driving too. Oops, I didn’t mean to saw your arm off or run that kid over, I just suck at it a lot and therefore am the best… so as Stephen Colbert would say, fame and fortune please!

[Politics] Flip-Flop This!

It aggrivates me to no end when the media rags on a politician (or candidate) for “flip-flopping”. That term is ridiculous and should stop being used altogether.

When a politician (or anyone really) is accused of flip-flopping, it is always in a derogatory way, implying that they are merely kowtowing to popular belief instead of standing by their own convictions and thus are not acceptable candidates.

The problem is that this absurd practice of accusing people of flip-flopping forces them to choose a side on an issue and lock into it come Hell or high water. Nevermind if new information comes to light that shows that your side is no longer correct, you must stick with it lest you be called a flip-flopper. It does not matter if new research shows that the opposite side is better, you must stick with the lesser choice or else you will be tagged as a flip-flopper. (Of course the side-effect is that if you don’t “flip-flop”, you are now endorsing the side that has been proven to be bad; damned if you do, damned if you don’t.)

Stop it! People can change their minds if they want to. Things change and a good candidate is one that can keep up and adapt as necessary. In fact most candidates run on platforms of change! Stop using that pathetic term and allow candidates to change as the world does, or else you are only doing yourself harm by tying their hands and making them afraid to adapt to new developments.

[Music] Horrible Children’s Songs

What the Hell is wrong with people?! Why do they teach children such horrible songs?

Alouette is a French (Canadian) song about torturing a skylark to death. Its verses detail how the singer rips off the bird’s wings, plucks out its eyes, breaks off its beak, back, legs, tail, neck, head, etc. WTF?! (We didn’t realize the grotesque nature of this song back in 4th grade because we were just learning French, were more concerned about getting a good mark, and were young and didn’t understand animal cruelty, but now…)

Baby Bumblebee is a song about bringing up a baby bumblebee, but when it stings the person (what do you expect bees to do?) the person lashes out and squishes it. Then they get upset about the poor dead thing’s guts being on them, then shrug off this act of abusive violence (“it’s not my fault, it made me do it”) and wipe off the viscera like nothing happened. WTF?! (This song seems to prepare children to be abusive in their relationships.)

There are plenty of others as well. I’ll list them when I remember them.

And adults wonder why children are so bad.

[Spam] (Almost) Amusing Spams

If this email is not spam, click here to submit the signatures to FortiGuard - AntiSpam Service.

Well that’s cocky. What if it is spam? Where do I click to report you?

[Television :: Commercials] Apple Doesn’t Know When to Quit

Apple’s use of indie music in their television spots has been quite successful. They present their products (iPods and Macs) as being young, hip, and trendy, while giving some artist (usually a relatively unheard of one) some much needed exposure and thus a “big break”. Most of the indie artists whose songs have been featured in an Apple commercial have done pretty well, particularly that song, getting very high sales, especially on Apple’s own iTunes.

Unfortunately what Apple does not seem to understand is that familiarity breeds contempt. This is especially true with music. While the more you hear a new song, the more you start to like it (voluntarily or not), there comes a point when the more you hear it, the more you hate it. Apple does not get that and has played many of their commercials so many times that you blow past liking the song and get quite sick of hearing it because the novelty wears way off.

Feist got a lot of attention from the Nano video that her song “1,2,3,4” was featured in, but seriously, how many people were sick and tired of hearing it by the time it was finally done? Yael Naim “New Soul” is currently getting the Apple treatment in the new MacBook campaign and like the others is already getting quite irritating.

As a fan of the Fratelli’s album Costello Music, I was quite upset that I was actually getting sick of hearing “Flathead” over and over and over and over and over again.

Apple needs to learn that too much of anything is bad, especially music. They need to make sure to cut the commercial before the song gets annoying and replace it either with a new commercial if possible, or if they don’t have a new product, then at least a new song.