As IF Times

Source: Students at Lena Dunham’s college offended by lack of fried chicken | New York Post

The great gulf between what is depicted in the movies and what you observe in real life is laughingly wide to those that pay attention to these things.  Whomever said that life imitates art hasn’t been paying attention.  The majority of movie trailers today tease filmgoers with chaotic scenes of violence and action: well coiffed heroes with guns ablaze performing superhuman acts of courage and daring while cavalierly dispatching bad guys.

There is no angst expressed during  the decimation of faceless thugs and evil despots; nor in the property destruction that is typically a horror show for insurance adjusters.  All of this visceral action and mayhem is undertaken ostensibly to benefit the greater good of mankind.

Movie depictions are truly created out of the most improbable adolescent fantasies.  Given today’s cultural zeitgeist, there is zero chance that such alpha personas exist other than as portrayed in cinema.  Kids on college campuses can barely withstand the horrors of name calling much less take a roundhouse to the temple.

It’s comical to imagine that 20-somethings today could possibly handle a multi round automatic weapon when the mere image of one sends them scurrying away to their self declared safe zones.  If they can’t handle the odd verbal slur, they aren’t going to like their nether regions being slammed by bolo balls while tied naked to a chair like 007 in a recent Bond movie.

While film has always been about creating idealized escapism, they may want to make movies that can more identify with today’s real world.  Conflicts between despotic villains can be resolved by earnest discussions without resort to violence or name calling.  Climactic scenes will include the peaceful surrender of evil doers by the marshaling of opposing protesters holding placards instead of the generic gun battles with infinite bullets.  Instead of stylized mano-a-mano kung-fu fights, they can instead be filmed as intense rock, paper, scissors scenes.  There will always be lawyers accompanying covert operators as they parachute into enemy territories on missions.  Perhaps in a delectable bit of rapturous fantasy, they can all be sacrificed for the good of the rest of society.  Meh, that’s probably too much of a stretch.

If you think about it, Star Wars as a concept couldn’t exist.  Societies would never be allowed to continue shooting and slashing in their struggles.  More likely, the conflicts would be determined by bands of lawyers huddling over canapés and scotch while the fearful masses sit huddled nearby anxiously awaiting the results like waifs in a Dickens novel.

Yep, the entertainment of today is mislabeled.  It’s not action/adventure; it’s all fantasy.

Source: Neighbors Of Harrisburg Teen Charged With Supporting ISIS Express Disbelief « CBS Philly

Why is Twitter even something that people do? Why do people Tweet?  How did the world get along without this stupid app?  I’m not even sure of how to use the word.  I guess it’s a verb, as in I twit you, or I twitter you.  If in a bar, do you tell someone to twitter you? Would they twitter you later, after dinner perhaps? Is it a noun, as in he’s a twitter, or they’re all twitters? If it’s singular, does that make someone a twit?

This useless app was invented on the heels of the success of all social media phenomenon beginning of course with Facebook.  In the case of Facebook, the app at least makes some sense as social voyeurs and exhibitionists alike could satisfy their particular needs.  In the case of Twitter, it appears that the utterances of a few celebrities or personalities are so compelling that subscribing to their timely bon mots is a must do.  It’s a bit of an evolution from the days of gathering around Moses while he reads pronouncements from a stone tablet.  But you’d think that based on the popularity of the app, that the pronouncements made by present day social deities are no less sage.

Why can’t people wait until the 6 pm news to know what Kim thinks? Why do we need to instantly know that she just bought a tennis bracelet for her cat? Why would any sane person need to be piped in to Al Gore’s recent verbal discharge?  According to Google, the accounts with the largest followings include Katy Perry, Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift and Barack Obama.  Wait…Barack Obama?

Unless you’re a spy, the compunction to be a twitter user implies that someone else’s life is more interesting than your own. It actually accentuates the very human tendency to listen to those views that are already agreeable to their own.  The more people that are in that echo chamber, the more it reinforces and validates their own worldview.  As the top twitter personalities above indicate, this is the realm of 12 year old girls.  This is the constituency of those that wait breathlessly for every word from their idols.

It’s actually brilliant marketing, since they don’t stop making 12 year old girls which come with their natural need to be part of a popular mob.  It’s curious that some people never outgrow that though. That’s why they’re called followers.