I'm So Over It.

I hate to be negative, but blogging is about sharing your thoughts, and lately, these 5 things, when brought up in conversation, tend to invoke those four little words in bold printed above.

1. Celebrity gossip. I don't care. I especially don't care about Britney Spears. Or Paris Hilton. Or Lindsay Lohan. Maybe if we stopped stalking them and paying so much attention to them, they'd calm the hell down.

2. Red Bull. People are all jacked up on it. But it hasn't been around long enough for us to know whether overconsumption of it will really wear out your heart faster or cause your body to do other weird stuff. I just don't like it. It's just one more thing to be addicted to. (How and when did our nation get so prone to/apathetic about addictions?)

3. Reality TV Shows About Rich People. Boring. Stupid. Overdone. I'm tired of getting sucked in by them and having my life wasted.

4. Slasher Movies. They will always be gross, and they're just getting worse and worse. And it seems regular tv has to get more intense just to keep up with people who get bored when blood and brains aren't being slung everywhere. Fact is, there are real blood and brains of innocent people being slung everywhere in countries all over the world everyday... and we hardly ever even hear about it-- because the news is all caught up with the life and times and uh-ohs of the people from bullet #1. And we (as individuals) subsequently, do nothing to stop it.

5. The overabundance of hip hop music that insults my gender and my intelligence. At the moment, namely "Crank Dat Soulja Boy". If I hear that ridiculous song one more time... nothing will happen. Because it's just on, everywhere, all the time and I can't get away from it.
I hate music that doesn't mean anything. I thought that was the point of music. To convey a message, a mood. To tell a story, to give the listener something to relate to. Not just background noise. Not a soundtrack for mindless drunken gyrating. Mindless gyrating is meaningless. Superfluous words that don't mean anything are meaningless. Idleness is meaningless. Meaninglessness is meaningless.

And depressing.

You know what I hear when "Crank Dat" and everything else like it comes on?

Little boys. (And don't tell me I'm thinking too hard about this-- that's how this crap got popular to begin with. No one thinks about it.) Immature, selfish, egocentric, unfullfilled and unaffirmed little boys, telling each other (and any female who will listen) how pimp and tight and BAMF they are, because no one who loved them ever bothered to tell them that they could be more than that. That they could be heroes, role models, defenders, revolutionaries, with power and influence who gain true respect from everyone-- not just they boys in the street.

It's pathetic. Trendy hip-hop is pathetic. And I hate the stereotype that it sets, encourages and promotes for the Black community nationwide.

I also hate that the Black community (like every other community, mind you) allows a place (BET?) for meaningless garbage like this to flourish, instead of demanding a higher quality of popular music (and film, for that matter. God bless Tyler Perry!). I'm mad that most don't think about it past the surface-- and those that do get blasted for "forgettin where they came from" and "listenin to dat white music". In the meantime, those people doing the accusing settle into the stereotype-- and then get mad with they get profiled.

(sigh)

I know pop & hip-pop will always be around, and much of it will always be mindless and meaningless and overplayed. It has it's place among all the rest of the garbage in the entertainment world, but it just sucks watching the general public turn into media zombies. It sucks to watch people stop caring and start settling for whatever. I'm terrified of numbness, and that's what I get from music like that.

Music associated with the Black community used to mean SO much. Jazz and soul and gospel and RNB & reggae and rap all had purpose, substance. They said something. The music was thick and emotional and controversial-- that's what made it stand out.

Now it feels cheap and mass-manufactured. Probably because it is.

I never want to write anything just to be popular. (Which is probably why I'll never make it in the music business. Which is fine.) I want to write things that have meaning. Things that that share wisdom and experience, things that people can relate to, connect to, be comforted by.

I believe my purpose in life is to spread hope to the hopeless through my own experiences and the experiences of others. To connect people by their similar struggles and remind them that others before them have made it-- and that they will too.

Words that mean nothing, do nothing.

And to quote the man who participated in televisions very first primetime interracial kiss,

"I can't get behind that."