Idioplicity(Easter in America)

April 12, 2009....where does one go when one needs basic living supplies(milk, orange juice, chocolate chip muffins)? America, better known as Wal Mart of course. Wal Mart is indicative of all things that we have come to value in this country: unbridled greed, the ubiquitous spread of idiocy(err, simplicity), and the cutthroat business nature that allows a certain store to stay open, no. matter. what. Strolling through the aisles, I didn't find the crowd that I would have expected on this second most holy of Christian holidays in a nation that refuses to define itself as Christian, yet constantly inundates its citizens to live as "Good Catholics/Protestants/Lutherans/Baptists/etc". Instead, I found mostly normal looking people there. No homeless or under sheltered crowd, just average Americans taking a drive to Wal Mart on another Sunday. As Americans, we love the idioplistic. Something so simple that it catches our attention while simultaneously realizing we will be dumber after partaking in the activity. In a culture fueled by people following the actions of other on Twitter and Facebook instead of going out and trying to do something worthwhile themselves, it isn't hard to imagine how idioplism quickly spread like a California wildfire. Hell, I'll admit, there are times even I capitulate to the seemingly unwielding influence of popular culture. After reading several articles on public policy(culminating with one on No Child Left Behind, a subject that always gets my blood pumping), I decided to listen to some music on one of the mothers of all American Idioplism: YouTube. I combed the site for awhile and was able to find the most watched videos of all time. It goes something like this:

10. Jonas Brothers- Burnin Up
9. Jonas Brothers- SOS
8. Chris Brown- Kiss Kiss
7. Britney Spears - Womanizer
6. Miley Cyrus - 7 Things
5. Alicia Keys- No One
4. Leona Lewis- Bleeding Love
3. Rihanna- Don't Stop the Music
2. Chris Brown- With You
1. Avril Lavigne- Girlfriend

And just in case you weren't one of the 118,281,200 people to view this video, let me give you a short sample of the lyrics:

You're so fine, I want you mine, you're so delicious
I think about you all the time, you're so addictive
Don't you know what I can do to make you feel alright?
Alright, alright, alright

Don't pretend, I think you know I'm precious
And so yeah, I'm a hey, hey princess
I can tell you like me too and you know I'm right
I'm right, I'm right, I'm right

She's like so whatever
You could do so much better
I think we should get together now
And that's what everybody's talking about



Now, imagine packaging up that list and those lyrics to your grandparents 50 years ago, April 12, 1959, which is unquestionably the period of American dominance in the world. Could you imagine the looks on their faces when they see that a song named Womanizer and the lyrics "She's like so whatever" dominate the American interface? It's no wonder the rest of the world often looks at us with mocking disdain. We don't have the scholarly nature of the Europeans(most Europeans think of us as complete morons) or the studious nature of the Asians. Yet, somehow, even after all these criticisms the world has looked and looks to us for direction in everything from scientific innovation to implementation and constraints of democracy. I did not write this piece to attack the things that we have done well in the past and I still feel that we do well now. Rather, this is a close examination of the rest of America, the media driven idiocracy that the rest of the world sees us. The point is this: America has always been attracted to simplicity. Technology has now made it possible to transfer ideas instantly, and the sheer nature of the beast is that the ones that don't take much effort to understand will be spread the fastest and most frequently. I'm just not sure when we crossed over from admiration of simplicity to admiration of idiocy. Somewhere in between, idioplicity, may be the best word to describe popular culture of our generation. So shape up America, or we may be the first generation whose grandkids look at us and say, "How were we spawned from such idiots?"