Clueless

Pursuance of triviality is as common a notion as pursuing excellence one was. In fact, hard work and toil is laughed at when there are easier, faster means of achieving fame, earning money, success and recognition. The decades earlier were famous for its lost generation, hippies, baby boomers, generations X and Y, and now, we are living in a decade that is increasingly unapologetic, crass and hedonistic.

Get rich quick has been overshadowed by its more alluring cousin—get famous real easy and quick. Once you get famous everything else falls into place—the money, the TV shows, the book deals and if successful in dishing out your brand of inanity, a movie where you get a starring role since who can play you better than yourself, right? Talent in its truest sense is secondary and almost unnecessary. Who needs to be gifted, educated or even to possess a hint of respectability when buffoonery and uncouthness can get you far enough? Though I must admit that it requires a certain amount of err… talent to stay afloat, if not on top, in the sea of senselessness.

You don’t even have the last the whole 15 minutes for fame. A minute or even less would do. The ingredients are the same: a pretty face or fantastic body (not gender specific), a vapid expression and flirtatious reaction to the camera, a run-in with the law (take your pick from drugs, drink, hit and run) and/or a stint in the slammer, a sex tape, a rehab stay, a scandalous affair (though what would qualify as scandalous after everything that has happened so far?) and you have yourself a winner! And to retain that interest? Plastic surgery and better yet a documented plastic surgery tale, a reality show following you and your pet house fly or marriage. And when you have milked out and sold every aspect that you could peddle, exposed and explored every cell of your being through the public lens, you could play mentor to the next ditzy thing that replaces you so that you can stay on and mooch off that reflected glory.