The ancient Mayan long-count calendar predicts the end of the world on Dec. 21, 2012. The mysterious, planet-wide phenomenon of Colony Collapse Disorder is causing an abrupt disappearance of the honeybee, which authorities have claimed to be so vital to humanity that ours would closely follow their extinction within four years. After 10 years of construction, the world's most powerful particle accelerator, called the Large Hadron collider, became operational in August; among its abilities is the power to create a miniature black hole on Earth. A personal letter from a CIA official inspired military novelist Tom Clancy to begin his 2001 Ghost Recon series, which eerily predicted an invasion of South Ossetia, Georgia in 2008 by a Russian ultra-nationalist president that eventually sparks world war. China is currently prototyping a high-tech system in cities for the constant monitoring of its citizens through hidden cameras, microphones and even tracking devices within an identification card containing everything one could want to know about someone-and the idea is ready for export.
The general election in November is already becoming rife with hysterical doomsday assertions from both sides. For example, thoughts that Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) will give the green light for Israel to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities, delving America into an all-out, endwar with Russia and Iran, leading to armageddon. On the other hand, there's the not-so-surprisingly accepted belief that Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is a secret, Islamic Manchurian Candidate. The end of their term as president would be 2012.
Our economy has been dramatized to be in chaos, war is spreading our country thin, the Earth is in a state of environmental flux, foreign tension is high and comparisons of America to the fallen Roman Empire are at an all time high. However, an Ice Age, nanomachines, honeybees, the economy, political strife, time-traveling-robotic-slave-traders, spy satellites, the environment, technology, Russian scoundrel-ism or a black president won't herald the end of times for us.
For all the worries we have as a country and as earthlings in general right now, whether well-founded on science or acceptable only in circles of tinfoil hat-wearing raving derelicts, I really don't find myself too preoccupied with worrying about any of them for more than a few seconds. As a college student, I really don't have too much to worry about except class and finding work after college-something that doesn't involve selling my organs. Most of our problems and worries are just periodic or trends: our economy will recover with time and thrift, the war will eventually end and the environment can heal.
What makes me worry is opening the paper to see that Katy Perry's song "I Kissed A Girl"-an artist who was first spewed onto the scene by her hit "Ur So Gay"-surpassed The Beatles for the longest running No. 1 song on the charts for her label, while simultaneously Disaster Movie is opening in theaters nationwide. Popular culture is a direct reflection of the direction a society is trending in and we are headed in a beeline for utter, cultural disintegration. I enjoy the pleasures of conformity and a catchy, little ditty as much as the next red-blooded American, but popular culture-music specifically-is starting to become so predictable and face-meltingly stupid that if we continue on this pace we're in more trouble than we think.
Every summer some lame dance hit, Dave Chappelle catchphrase or reality show penetrates the American zeitgeist and mesmerizes the masses until it is regurgitated ad naseum to the point of brainlessness. Though innocent enough, over time we actually start to put value into these things and we eventually lose base and disappear as a people. For all the good things we have as Americans like individualism, freedom, monster truck rallies, the Second Amendment and an endless appeals system, we're starting to admire and adopt the worst of it into Americana. The Romans didn't fall from a siege; they fell from a dilution of culture that led to mass lethargy and complacency as a people. What's popular has become so predictable that companies, namely Epigog, have created software that analyzes everything from screenplays to songs based on connectionist theory and puts them on a simple scale of how popular it will be. Their music analyzer, "Platinum Blue," has actually predicted for labels the chart position and chart lifespan of Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy" before it was even released, as well as Ashanti's "Baby" and James Blunt's "You're Beautiful."
It's not just music we're seeing this in either. The line of vague, genre movies like Epic Movie from film terrorists Jason Friedberg and Aaron Setzer have degraded comedy into basically irrelevant cultural references for laughter. What kind of unfair and cruel joke is it of our creator's to subject us to these movies time and time again? Film critic Josh Levin of Slate.com has called their work the most prolific symbol of Western civilization's decline. The worst part is, we are the one's who allow it-these movies would stop being made if they didn't gross $86 million at the box office.
Culture is America's biggest export, making what we appreciate in popular culture rain over the rest of the world and all the more important that we clean up our act and start demanding decent, at least somewhat insightful media before we face cultural extinction. For instance, the emo epidemic has become so severe in Russia that last month the Kremlin actually attempted to outlaw the trend all together. However, the most telltale sign of the decline of our cultural intellect may be the inability of columnists to write something witty or thoughtful to end their tirades, or to really drive their column home and make a point.
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