America's System for Rewarding People

It used to be that when people did anything good of particular "noteworthiness", it would get plastered in the local paper and be on the news, and sometimes the person would get a medal or a key to the city. Even in grade school, they had those damned awards ceremonies.

Like this one time, I was in high school, and us students had our daily sleep at school interrupted, only to be forced to go to an assembly where the faculty paraded all the straight "A" students (and those who had perfect attendance-- WOW!!!) in front of our collective faces, making us look and feel like real dummies (or just general indifference) also attempting to make us feel small because we were regular kids. They seem to be like "why can't the rest of you idiots be good like these guys?" I guess God will love me less because I didn't get straight A's all the time, but I digress....that's what the media typically awarded in those days -- positive things. But not now.

Today, if you're frequently in trouble with the law, staying in court for hitting your stylist in the head with cell phones or whatever, various television networks shower you with promises of your own series! What the hell! It's like all those things your mother ever told you about being a good person and fighting the good fight were all lies, and the only way to get anywhere in life is not just to be a waste of skin per se, but to be a royal fuck-up! It's like as long as you continue to stay in the news any and every way you can, trying as hard to be a jackass as you can, you'll be given all your heart's desires.

Exhibit A:



A person truly deserving of their own TV show...

I was watching this show a couple weeks back where this family had 17 (!) kids and they get all this free stuff including their own reality show, and even appeared on the "Today" show, for free! How fair is that?! You bust your ass every day and struggle to get to the bottom, and because these people decided to grow their own pro football team, they get things handed to them! In the ghetto, the government basically sews up a black woman's vagina but they will give (white) people free stuff and their own show!

Exhibit B:



What the mother (assistant coach) of the aforementioned football team looked like:

To be perfectly honest, reality shows of virtually any kind ("The Real World" being an exception) make me want to get drunk off my ass and then proceed to throw up, just so I'd have something to save me from boredom; I think I'd much rather see a series about a person who made (and/or continues to make) a difference in the lives of young people or people in general. For example, if Barack Obama hadn't won the election last night, I know I would be tuning in to whatever series he and his family were given, because I know it wouldn't suck and wouldn't be ratings poison.

I don't know why dumbasses are given their own for behaving badly; I guess as long as they're giving the media something to talk about, it'll continue to happen...