the puppy situation

You know what? I wrote a whole entry just now about that girl that threw the puppies into the river in Germany and the subsequent publishing of all her personal information on the internet and the crazy global lynch mob that’s going after her for doing something really, really terrible, but then I erased it all. The whole entire situation stinks so bad. I mean, I’m no huge fan of puppy drowning, nor do I like how much power the nerds wield in today’s technocratic dystopian crapscape. I don’t like a whole world of people ganging up on a teenaged girl who’s obviously both quite disturbed and massively stupid. I don’t like the way any of this shit went down, and I really don’t like that kids now are so cavalier about putting shit on the internet. What’s gonna be going on when my kids are old enough to post shit on the internet? I mean, there’s already suicides, dog killing, people fucking pigs and goats and shit…There’s literally nothing left, right?
I mean, I know that when they started showing Elvis’s hips on television our grandparents said the same thing. “Well, that’s as far as humanity can take things, obviously” but they were wrong. I mean, all that’s left is like honest-to-god death squad footage of people incinerating families and gangraping people and stuff, which, let’s be honest is way worse than drowning a couple of puppies, innit?

Yeah, it’s a bad situation…If you guys don’t know what I’m talking about just google ‘girl in red sweater tossing puppies into river’ and check out the whole disturbing thing. Meanwhile, I’m gonna cheer myself up by talking about a good situation, in fact the best situation. Of course, I’m talking about the Situation.

The Situation is a totally great dude and there’s no way to deny it. I just read that he’s buying a Bentley. Good work, Situation! He’s now on Dancing with the Stars (which I’m actually gonna start watching now because of him) and he’s got action figures, a workout tape and all sorts of clothes and bullshit like that. The dude’s taken an outrageous nickname (remember when you first heard that he was called The Situation? If your reaction was anything like mine it was something along the lines of “um…that’s not a name. Who the fuck is gonna call someone ‘the situation’?) and turned it into an empire, and before you get all snotty and pooh pooh my boy, allow me to point out the following: No reality star (save one, who kind of did the same thing, who we’ll get to soon enough) has EVER done anything like this before. That shit’s impressive, folks.

The Real World season one arguably invented the reality tv genre in 1992. Some of you weren’t even born. I was in highschool struggling with constant boners and the occasional bra clasp and I watched the shit out of that show. That first season spawned some great archetypes that we still see today: the angry black guy, ancillary less angry but still very understanding-of-black-guy’s-outrage black chick, hillbilly chick that “don’t really know no real black folk, yall,” dumb himbo who thinks this show’s his rocket to the moon, and of course the slut. It also taught the genre what seemed like a very important lesson: if someone is genuinely personable and kind of easy going, they’re gonna be dull as shit on TV.
Andre was this guy on the first season of Real World. He was a post grunge Shannon Hoon wannabe who was in a terrible band called (ready for this?) Reigndance.
Um, nice band name.
Anyhoo, Andre was kind of mellow and he was dull as shit as a result, and so from then on they decided that they needed the following people almost exclusively: persecuted minorities (as in, people that feel that because they’re black, gay, Chinese, a redneck etc. that the world is out to get them), desperate sluts, dumb xenophobes, a drunk and a few people who have questions about their sexuality just to spice shit up. This remained the model for reality tv until kind of recently, when the whole ‘family style’ reality show and the ‘I’m already a celebrity but I’m doing reality’ style show started becoming the main thing. BUT: importantly in ALL these shows either drunk sluts or completely shitty human beings who are abrasive to be around 100% of the time are the bread and butter. This is true for Rock of Love and it’s true for Jon and Kate plus 8 and it’s true for Hogan knows best. The shows that fuck with that notion are either about food (ace of cakes) or they’re dumb and cancelled before you even see their little chocolatey faces peeking up from behind their candy counter (Midget Chocolate People or whatever it’s called [I know what it’s called]).

Yes, since 92 there have been THOUSANDS of reality stars, and they’ve all been huge for a moment and then gone away or at least gone back to obscurity (I realize that in the UK this is a little different, but for my purposes here I’m sticking strictly American reality) with the exception of 2 people: Kate Goesslin and then my boy the Sitch.
Kate is an anomaly for a lot of reasons. 1) she’s a mom and we tend to shy away from cultural obsessions with moms that look like moms (though we’re endlessly thrilled with mom’s hot new bikini bodies for whatever reason) 2) (and this is a little like 1)) She’s hideously deformed looking and 3) She’s a total cunt, but people don’t seem to love to hate her, they just love her, which says a lot about the cunt quotient in this country, I suppose.
Anyway, Kate was the first non famous reality star to break out and become a real honest to god celebrity, based in no small part on a completely dildofied ex husband and a messy divorce and the worst hair I’ve ever seen. She surpassed the Ryans and Tristas of the world of reality, people who were famous, but only in the cultural context of their reality show. Kate transcended Jon and Kate and therefore became a real live celebrity. Sure, she’s one of the shittiest excuses for a celerity that we’ve ever seen, but she’s a celebrity.
And time raced on…

(At this point I want to address the elephant in the room that is Paris Hilton and Nicole Ritchie and Kim Kardashian. Yes, technically they got big doing reality TV, BUT they were all already groomed for fame. Tabloids were looking at them and publishing photos before they had a show or a sex tape or anything. They’ve got famous parents and they live in Hollywood and they’re rich. If they hadn’t had reality shows they’d still be famous. Look at Suri Cruise if you don’t believe me)

But then…MTV broke their cardinal rule and cast a homogenous house full of people. There was no persecuted black guy, no gay guy, no hillbilly who’d never seen someone with an afro. Nope. It was all just beefy, oiled up Italian kids who get drunk and fuck each other (except Ronnie, who gets drunk, does cocaine and fucks someone). They had break out stars in the Situation and Snookie, something that’s never really happened before, and while snookie used her opportunity to paint herself orange and leave her panties at home, thereby falling into the reality abyss with Puck, Jack Osbourne, and the entire cast of Robot Wars, The Situation cleverly marketed himself through athletics, booze and uh…probably some other shit, right? He’s made a brand out of being a dude that always pulls up his shirt and talks about how awesome he is and you know what? He IS awesome! I’d LOVE to hang out with the Sitch, bros. I’d love it. And not in an ironic “lookit me! I’m hanging with the situation (snicker)” kind of way (though that’s definitely part of it). I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, he seems like a nice dude who’s pretty funny and likes to have a good time. I’m in.
I’ve even got my own nickname: “A couple of dioramas.” What do you think? It’s weird, right?
Hey, worked for my boy, maybe it’ll work for me.
Ah, I forgot about Elizabeth Hasslebeck. But she’s kind of a harpy, so fuck her.
I gotta go to the gym, get a quick tan and then do some laundry so I’m gonna go.
Peace, grenades!