If People magazine had a face, I would punch it. Hard. Nineteen-year-old Mike Tyson hard.
This publication is the opposite of what its name implies. Its coverage is inhuman.
At People, it seems that exploiting vulnerable celebrities earns you a medal of honor. Rihanna gets mauled by Chris Brown; John Travolta's son dies; Britney Spears does anything: Capture these events at all cost.
How is it morally OK to hound a battered woman? Does their quest for the $100,000 photo really outweigh their ability to consider her feelings? One pop star's domestic abuse is an opportunistic cameraman's stroke of luck. Appalling.
Americans are sold short by this magazine on a weekly basis, and it isn't going to stop.
Who's to blame? I'll quote my favorite consonant from "V for Vendetta" to answer that one. After hijacking a British television station and its emergency broadcast channel, V announces to all of London "there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there?" Rather than blaming someone else, he tells the city, "you need only look into a mirror."
Our unhealthy obsession with famous people is turning our nation into drooling, complacent tabloid whores. We are all becoming Gossip Girls.
We allow this garbage. Some even crave it. We are surrounded by it, and we've stopped caring. It has become part of our society, so we shrug it off because it's expected.
I shouldn't point a finger at anyone else before pointing at myself. I watched some of the "Surreal Life." A house full of once-upon-a-timers intrigued me. At the time I wondered where the hell these people had been. I watched a few episodes and was horrified. I quickly realized Flavor Flav, Brigitte Nielsen and the gang had disappeared for a reason.
Unfortunately, their mugs returned to the silver screen at a crucial time for their I'll-do-anything-for-some-face-time careers. Reality TV was crap when everyday folk were the stars, but the reemergence of faux celebrities turned hardened dog-doo into Satan personified. The Hollywood writers' strike hit, and these show-biz corpses once again became the top ticket.
The news is littered with this trash, too. Spare me the Brangelina bullcrap, I want pertinent local and national news. Hell, at this point, I'll even sit through some international disaster buzzkill.
And there it is.
In general, Americans don't give a damn about the rest of the world. We're part of an egotistical landmass with two giant moats on either side. We're in our bubble and we don't like to leave.
To shield our country from the rest of the world, we collect shiny, expensive things, so we can tell ourselves everything is dandy. If we can't afford that, we live vicariously through the people who can. We have the capability to stay informed, and we take it for granted.
Leave Britney alone for a few weeks. Let Rihanna's face regain its luster. Don't bother Travolta for a few years.
In the meantime, go hassle someone you actually know.
Adam Wynn is a journalism senior. His column appears on Fridays.
