Tag: cultural trends that need to retire

Tired Trends of 2011 and the Coming Pig-Apocalypse

(Witness the inevitable truck-wreck of human existance)

The Trends to Retire Before 2012:

The Great Bacon Love-In –

The bacon-craze continues as strongly as ever.  There was a time when people actually cared that it is not good for you in great quantity.  For at least two years now this trend has unleashed the devil across the country, encouraging people to declare their bacon devotion against all health warnings in great defiance with only slight frightened glances at the doctor examining blood panels.  It has reached such a pitch that it has become a little revolting.  Every article about bacon and every bacon recipe is now given as a bold invitation to a group masturbation session.  Yes, you love the mighty cured pig flesh.  Yay you.  Oh you sexy things – nothing more sexy than your greasy esophagus – please tell me what else you will slather in bacon while I wallow in this forbidden pleasure (obviously while naked) that health gurus are trying to destroy!

I’ve got news for you: no one gives a shit if you want to slather yourself in bacon and wash your hair in rendered bacon fat.  In fact, no one cares if you render your own fat while you do it.  Get a room and get it over with.

Meat Obsession –

There is a great general meat obsession going on that I believe is a backlash to all the reports that meat isn’t all that healthy in great quantities.  This is an extension of the bacon trend but less masturbatory in expression.  Americans love their meat.  Tell them they shouldn’t have too much meat and they freak out because that’s the only real food group many Americans recognize outside of McDonald’s (as a whole food group).  If some meat is good, more meat is better.  In fact, meat stuffed with meat and then wrapped in meat is a gluttonous trend I’m seeing everywhere.  It’s only a matter of time before we’ve gone beyond bacon doughnuts and start doing pork filled doughnuts made with rendered veal fat and slathered in a steak-butter-sugar glaze.  Give it a rest.  Give your body a damn rest.  No wonder so many Americans’ skin looks as shiny and as textured as fat-slicked-burgers.

On the other hand, continuing on this meat craze may result in self-selecting yourselves out of the gene pool leaving room for a civilization more secure in itself and a lot healthier.  Carry on!

Nostalgia –

I realize this is an age-old trend but I think I’m feeling more bombarded by it these days as my peers and I have reached middle age.  That seems to be a typical time to start feeling nostalgia for pretty much everything in the past.  My sister was explaining some of the main concepts that she studies in the Shambala center she meditates at and does retreats with.  The main one is being completely in the present.  This struck me as something I need to practice more.  I DON’T feel any nostalgia.  Ever.  I never look back on my past with bittersweet longing.  Or any longing.  However, I have my own issues and I freely admit that I’ve indulged in bitterness over the last few years at what I perceive to be the hardest years I’ve had since my suicidal teen years.  I am not living fully in the present when I indulge in such feelings of bitterness.  You who are indulging in nostalgia of any stamp are also not living in the present, not only that, nostalgia is really irritating to those not experiencing it.  It gets tiring to hear it in your lilting voice full of that indefinable space between pleasant memory and sorrow that it is in the past.  How about this: you and me practice being in the present more this year?  Let’s do that together.

Large Families –

This is a trend that has been on the upswing since after the plague hit Europe.  No famine, no disease, and no natural disasters have had significant impact on the overall population expansion of the world.  We can’t keep growing like this.  Don’t throw me statistics and numbers to show that it isn’t YOUR fault or OUR fault and that it has nothing to do with YOU or ME and that it’s all THEM and THEIR fault.

Look, I had a kid.  I contributed.  I don’t regret having my child and I don’t expect anyone else to feel even a shred of guilt for the children they’ve already had either, no matter how many.  They’re here already and deserve all the love and happiness you feel to have had them.

But there is every opportunity to apply family planning to your own life and to promote it as an important concept world-wide.  Over population is EVERYONE’S concern because every single child born on this planet requires resources.  Why should anyone care how many kids you have?  Why is it their business?  The bald fact is that every child you have takes resources away from other children.  The more children you have, the more resources you are claiming for you and your family that will not be available to others.  Even if you are being very conscious about your use of resources, every person born needs a certain amount of food and water to survive.  There is no statistic that is going to change that fact.

As of this year there are 7 BILLION people on this planet.  People gotta die or not be born in the first place to make room for those of us already here.  There is a finite number of resources on this planet.  I want everyone who wants to have a family to be able to have a family.*  For that to be possible – people need to choose to have smaller families.  I’ve said it, you can hate me all you want, the facts remain the same.

War is a Bloody Exhausted Trend-

This trend is sick and wrong and our own country has been fighting for ten years and what we’ve won is nothing much.  What we’ve lost is a lot of money and a few soldiers.  What we’ve destroyed is a lot more than what we’ve personally lost.  We’ve killed over 1oo,000 Iraqi civilians.  We’ve lost almost none of our own civilians.  Supposedly our soldiers are all headed home from Iraq this month.  Forgive me if I’m cynical and think that we’re still holding a few back to “control” or “help” the situation.  Obviously I’ll be thrilled if it really turns out to be true and we are completely out of Iraq this month.  We still have Afghanistan to pull out of.  Time to wrap up all war-mongering and stop being the enormous ass-hole country we’ve been for the last decade.  Time to work on our own problems at home and lord do we have some HUGE problems here.

Pulling money from Public Schools –

Public schools worked a lot better, had much better results, and churned out a better quality education when it actually had funding.  People complain about it, we take more money away from them, people complain more, we take more funds away from them – it’s insane.  Any respectable educational institution in the world requires good funding to pay teachers and to buy good supplies.  Without it – they will fail.  They are failing because we are forcing them to fail.  While a few people may be giving good educations to their children through homeschooling or by sending their kids to private ($$$) schools, this is not an option for most Americans who do not have a parent at home to home-school or the funds to send them to private schools.

Even if most households had a parent at home able to educate their children, a frightening number of people in this country are too ignorant themselves to give their kids an education at home.  Generally they are too ignorant because they did not get a good education due to lack of funding to the public schools they attended.  See the connection?  The ignorance level in this country is alarming and the only way to fix it is to build up and make our public schools better.

The Consumer trend –

Every 0ne of us is a consumer.  We all need things we can’t produce ourselves.  Consumerism is a fact of life and not something to be ashamed of.  However, in this country we have become great purveyors of crap.  Those who can afford it buy more expensive crap.  Our lives use up a lot of energy and half the things in our homes were made by the worst paid people on the planet many of whom are children.  Fuck that shit.  Buy things only when you need them.

Have occasional splurges for joy – but do it thoughtfully and get the most enjoyment you can out of each splurge.  Fix more of the things you already have when they break.  It often doesn’t seem worth it – but choosing to fix things keeps more toxic crap out of the landfill and that is worth a lot of money.  I broke our little television recently and fixing it cost almost 75% of the original price of the thing (it was a cheap small one I use for my craft room) and I could have gotten something more up to date and flashy but until I broke it this tv was quite good.  We got it fixed.  One less tv in the landfill for at least a few more years.  Try it.  At least give that option a thought every single time something in your house breaks.

Buy less, buy things that are made better and will last longer whenever you can swing it.  This is not a smug asshole way to live – it’s a shift everyone needs to make.  Most people I know are already making it in one way or another.  It can take time.  If you haven’t started making the shift – start this year.  A hunger for things, shopping to make you feel better when you’re blue, and always having to get the next upgrade is stupid – knock that fucking shit off.

(I’m writing this from a used IBM laptop with no frills, a small screen, and a utilitarian cover.  It is sturdy, a fraction of the cost of new, and does everything I need it to.  Consider that: I make my living online.  I write.  I blog.  I process photographs.  I use this thing constantly and it does EVERYTHING I need it to.  I’m just telling you because I know for a fact you don’t all need the newest laptops.  You really truly don’t, no matter what excuses you have all handy.) 

Fur in Fashion –

For god’s sake – stop paying to skin minks for your vanity.  I’m guessing women feel rich and powerful in fur because they’re wearing another animal’s skin over their own in possessive manner – like great big important chiefs with lion skin capes proving their dominion over all other animals on earth. NEWSFLASH: I know you didn’t hunt down that animal yourself and skin it and tan it with your own piss so wearing it is not an indication of prowess, it proves only your desire to show people you can afford to dress in fur.  (Even if you did hunt it yourself – you didn’t use a spear or your own bare hands, you used a fucking gun.  Big deal.  Animals have no defense against a gun.  If you live in either of the poles I 100% agree that fur may be the only real way to keep warm.  Awesome.  While it may get cold in Manhattan, it is by no means necessary to wear mink.)

Actually, I know the real reason women like to wear it is because it represents wealth and exclusivity.  It’s not every ho who can afford a pair of mink earrings to go with their mink coats.

In conclusion I will predict that none of these trends are going to stop this year or any year soon.  The alternative is to prepare for the great animal uprising and the inevitable Pig-apocalypse where all women are used by pigs to suckle their young while they feed on our own babies and enslave the menfolk to sit in confinement their entire lives only to see the light for periodic conjugal-cage visits to ensure a steady supply of suckling human babies for the pig trough.  I will, therefore, prepare an outfit for the coming animal uprising and pray that my lifelong vegetarianism goes some way to preserving me from their wrath.  Onward, then, towards the dire future!

*I have two friends who are pregnant right now and if they don’t know how happy I am that they’re going to get to be parents, then they don’t know me at all.