 |
| Angela as Curmudgeon, thanks to Snapchat. |
I've been seeing videos from this young fellow below. His name is Nas. In it he makes the point that the Internet, as it is now being used, is an unsustainable medium. He is not wrong.
See? Some folks agree with me and they all aren't old curmudgeons wishing for the old days when everything was right with the world. The world has never always been right, and you know it. Still, Nas has a point.
The Internet is one long chase for the ever-elusive monetized click count at the expense of substance. To get it, people do all the things this fellow shows in his video. Watch it, then read on.
How is the Internet different from print media, you ask?
Not much. I can guarantee that Cosmopolitan, Playboy, Penthouse, and Elle would not still be in business if they didn't have lust-inflaming pictures celebrating Sex in every form because — let me tell you! — they are woefully lacking in substance.
And before you ask "Hey, Angela, how do you what's in them there magazines?" I will come clean and tell you.
I grew up on Playboy and Penthouse; they were considered the lighter porn in my house. I won't even go into detail about the hardcore stuff just laying around, but you understand what I'm saying.
When I was a teenager, my friend's father confronted me with an issue of Cosmopolitan I had loaned his daughter. He asked how I could spread that smut to her. I said, "What is smut and what in there in particular is this thing called smut?" He showed me a picture of a woman sitting in a chair with her legs spread though all the pertinent parts were artfully if barely covered. But they were covered.
I was confused. I stared at the picture trying to figure out what was wrong with it and told him I did not understand what he was upset about. Some conversation ensued wherein I told him that Cosmo was art compared to what else I read.
At home.
In the open.
In front of parents because they are they ones who brought it in.
This was something the man did not know about our family. We were in the kitchen and I remember his righteous anger in trying to protect his daughter. Though such a reaction was alien to me, I respected it.
I also remember that sitting in front of him that day was something he had not known existed. He stood up straight. Backed to the counter and leaned against it, still holding the rolled up issue. He was thinking hard as he took in this new information.
The man was right.
That picture in Cosmo was the tip of the slippery slope of the iceberg of smut. I know what art is now. That was not art. It was a celebration of the basest and worst in us and for what? To sell a watch or a perfume or a pair of pants?
I never bought that magazine again, not because I understood why it was smut, but because I valued his opinion. I came to understand the insidiousness of it later and I thank the man for speaking up.
Because it is only with the speaking up of people who value courage, virtue, honesty, good morals, and high-quality character traits will the fight against their opposites have a chance of winning — or at least having a sporting chance of survival.
Because on thing is for sure will not stop: The unrelenting nature of the insidiousness campaign of the P-HWPCDLRSFC* which tries to shove us all into acting base and loving the debauched — and all in the name of Inclusion.
Any society that devolves to that base state ceases to exist. Any community that says everything goes and nothing is wrong becomes massively unsafe.
Who is tired of apologizing for celebrating virtue?
I am. And I'm tired of being made fun of for it, too.
* P-HWPCDLRSFC is Pussy-Hat Wearing Politically Correct Democrat Liberal RINO Socialist Fascist Commies
