What Infuriates You?

c. David Grim (taken 4/5/08)

Yikes, my head is about to explode. Yet I know that no one really needs to read about my personal tribulations on the internet. So, since I can't really blog about the hellish nature of moving my life forward at this juncture in time... and I know that everything is ultimately transient and shifting- I've decided to sublimate my feelings instead.

I'm a regular reader of the AV Club section of The Onion website. Believe me, reading the highly opinionated comments of wannabe cultural critics is highly distracting entertainment. Often the most interesting articles are the Q and A segments that ask each official writer a question about their likes and dislikes. And of course this is followed by hundreds of readers chiming in on the topic. These are often contentious interchanges, filled with "pretension" (however you define that nebulous concept).

Last week the question dealt with infuriating cultural phenomena. Such a highly subjective query elicited a wide variety of responses. Everything from someone named Ke$ha to Alfonso Cuaron seemed to draw people's ire. No doubt I could make a long list of things in the mainstream that "infuriate" me. The predominance of "reality television" would surely be at the top of my list. The dumbing down of commercial radio would figure in there as well. The stranglehold that professional sports holds over the American public is another obsession of mine.

Really, I tend to divert a lot of my frustration and anxiety about life by hating mass culture. Perhaps if I didn't have this target I would have to take out my negativity on individuals. Who knows? I guess it's just as likely that I would come to embrace humanity more if tastes we more aligned with my own. If that's the case, certainly I am in wide company.