So, unless you just don't do social media, or you decided to sleep away your Monday, you likely know that the internet is buzzing about the Taylor Swift and Kimye feud that erupted over Kim's snapchat last night. Multiple celebrities got dragged into the feud, leaving casualties on both sides and making the twiittersphere turn into a veritable pack of wolves waiting for the carnage. It was ugly, and it will likely go down as one of the most publicly petty happenings of 2016. If you need to educate yourself, click here.
I won't lie. I retweeted and favorited the hell out of tweets from lowly spectators and watched the drama unfold with rapture. For even just a few hours, as the drama grew and grew, I was entirely absorbed in the mindless, childish interaction between a group of America's (and arguably the world's) biggest celebrities and public figures. It was addicting. Who would weigh in next? Kim, Taylor, Selena, Khloe, Chloe, Demi, Katy, Calvin, etc...
This morning, the feud is old news. Unless something absurd happens within the next 48 hours, the whole interaction will likely fade slowly into the background of society and begin to hold nothing more than just a reference point for history's pettiest action up to now. However, this will soon be replaced by another blowup of epic proportions, and then another, and another, and on as an endless cycle of irrelevant social headlines occupy our collective short-term memory.
But why do we operate this way? Why do we forget about all of the pain and the hurt and the evil in the world as soon as we get a whiff of drama? Why do we ignore events that happen in, and have the power to alter, the world in favor of diving into socially propagated bullshit?
Americans are acutely aware of social news and popular cultural icons to the point that they often are distinctly ignorant to how the knowledge reached them in the first place. The average person is likely aware of cultural happenings and phenomena, like Pokemon GO, the newest Snapchat filters, Fergie's new song, M.I.L.F $, and the unprecedentedly social presidential race. Unfortunately, the average citizen likely knows far less about biggest news stories, including Brexit, the recent shootings around the country, the Nice attack, or the refugee crisis.
When it seems best to escape the world through pop culture and social media, you find that you cannot escape from pop culture and social media, causing a desperately restrictive, never-ending cycle. Overall, the escape comes from a desperate place. The affairs of the world are dark; with war, disease, and suffering seemingly permeating every continent, popular culture is consistently trivial and lighthearted, allowing people to ignore the horrors of the world and cling to a shard of hope in the most desperate of times.The world now is so violently present, if news of global events reaches our selective ear, they are likely to be tales of tragedy and suffering, forcing us even deeper into the comfort of triviality.
So, I suppose the only thing we can do to balance out this desperate attempt to escape is to make sure we don't get lost in the mess of it all. Be intentional; speak out on something that moves you, be active and knowledgeable regarding the events of the world and be certain that you remain well-informed. Simultaneously, when it gets to be too much, when you begin to fear the direction society is rocketed towards, take a step back and indulge yourself in something frivolous, if only to make yourself forget for a while. Be cautious of wholly engrossing yourself in either side; don't be Kim and don't be Taylor, be a bit of both. After all, we can't resent them that much-- we made those bitches famous.
