Distaste for the Illogical

Every year, I hear people talk about how they’re going to wake themselves up obnoxiously early to go shopping for Christmas on the day after Thanksgiving. The notion confuses and downright disturbs me whenever I see the aftermath of this hive mentality all over the news media.

The simple truth is, Black Friday makes us into animals .

Whether an angry mob incapacitates and hospitalizes a pregnant woman or even kills a man to save a few dollars, it makes me wonder exactly what it is that makes us human in the face of this capitalist economy. To be frank, I don’t think there’s a single material possesion I desire badly enough for me to want to end someone’s life.

Part of me wonders why shoppers, especially those who have unstable health issues, insist on putting themselves in harm’s way by being at these dangerous locales. What kind of thought train are these people riding in on?

The other part of me wants to show no sympathy for any of these morons, whether they are the ones trampling, or the ones underfoot. The mindless charade of piling into a shopping mall or department store is voluntary, and the risks they are subjecting themselves to aren’t obscure in the least. In other words, nobody’s forcing any of these shoppers to play consumerism rugby against their will.

Just for kicks, I went out to a popular shopping locale on the last Black Friday. I didn’t want to buy anything, I only wanted to witness what was so special that had throngs of zombies arising from their sleep at 4AM and congregating at the front door of a Circuit City. I watched as large, burly men shoved elderly women aside to snatch coveted unspecified electronics. I heard relentless onslaughts of isolated profanity as shoppers argued with employees over stocking technicalities and regulations. I witnessed reckless and inconsiderate behavior where one would normally see compassion, with men and women stepping over eachother instead of helping eachother up. But what I didn’t see throughout all of it was a good reason why.

Has heartless consumerism replaced common kindness?

In this bizarre story about a dysfunctional and disabled English couple crafting relationships through online avatars,  there is an underlying new wave theme, a new take on an old problem;

Infidelity.

The article details how invested people can be in the virtual world; The couple met online, married in an online ceremony, and then promptly made congruous living arrangements with eachother. When Amy Taylor discovered her husband’s avatar cuddling with another online woman some time later, it was enough to send their marriage spiraling down into divorceville.

All this makes me wonder, with all concern possible, what the hell is happening to our society. If we’re relying on the internet to convey our emotions to others, there’s something clearly being lost in interpersonal connectivity.

Granted, infidelity is infidelity, and the meanings behind our actions are what carry the most weight. If the “cheater” in the relationship wasn’t happy with his marriage and sought comfort in the virtual arms of another online woman, it’s still infidelity. It’s not cheating, however.

People these days are placing too much stock in their internet personas. Here’s a story about World of Warcraft, a game that millions of dorks pay heaps of money to play every month. It’s bad enough that there’s no end to the game, but what’s even worse is that the game’s economy carries right over into the real world. If you stiff someone in this game, they just might find out where you live and come stab you.

Apparently, you can sell your currency in Warcraft to another person on Ebay for REAL MONEY. It makes no sense, seeing as it accomplishes nothing in real life, but it suggests a trend in our world, heading towards a virtual existence. Will we cease to exist outside of the internet someday?

It was big news that Illinois Senator Barack Obama won the election, and although I had to work a long shift at the restaurant and missed all of the election coverage, I was still moved by the idea that the American people would give a relatively young, black senator a chance to take the country’s helm.

That’s not to say that novelty was his only redeeming quality. Far from it, actually. What I found the most interesting was that Obama won with landslide-esque numbers, marking a massively progressive point in the history of how Americans everywhere think.

Then I saw this;

Texas Football Player Uses Racial Slur on Facebook

The premise of this was that a Texas Longhorn football player named Buck Brunette found it clever and in good taste to post a racial slur about Obama on his facebook page. Although Brunette claimed that it was only a joke, the idea that in this day and age, referring to someone using racial epithets and hurtful references to America’s darker past isn’t the smartest thing to post on a website that literally everyone has access to.

Having a UMass degree, I understand things like how you shouldn’t post sensitive things on facebook, like for example;

• -Pictures of yourself drinking heavily
• -Pictures of yourself naked or doing questionable things with minimal clothing
• -Pictures of yourself performing acts of vandalism
• -Racist commentary, no matter how presumably facetious

Yet the guy got national publicity and was forced to resign from the football team. See what stupidity costs you?

At the same time, I also feel that racism is wildly intollerable in our country. Despite the fact that our country has a brilliant history of racial intollerance, I am inclined to believe that in recent history, racism is all but transparent. Quite the transition.

Alternatively, I might make the point that the status Brunette left on his facebook page was put there in stupidity instead of in spite. I know people even here in the leftist northeast who wouldn’t hesitate to tell a poorly-conceptualized race joke in the hopes of extorting a cheap laugh or two, not understanding that my subconscious will forever brand them a semi-racist.

Even more to consider is that black culture is completely accepting of the liberal use of the n-word between its members, but that the same word takes on a hurtful connotation when being spoken by white individuals (and not even other minorities, I hear hispanics and asians use it all the time).

It makes me wonder what it was that was meant, and subsequently targetted with this woefully poorly-timed remark on facebook. Was it the honor of a noble black contender for America’s highest office, or was it the innocent commraderie sought by bland humor from a slow-thinking lineman?

The motivations for both are strong, but I feel that until race becomes less of an issue in this country, we will never be able to make that distinction.