The Moral of the Story

... is that money is evil.

Could NYC Prep define high capitalism and signal its fall?

Cable TV shows and subsequently induced homicidal mania are synonymous at this point, so I rarely feel like I need to comment on that here. But, rarely do I wish cancer on a bunch of teenagers after being subjected to their most inane brand of purchased self-veneration and Everything That Is Wrong With America.

Five minutes into this televised holocaust and you'll be foaming at the mouth. But that makes me wonder if the producers of the show aren't doing the world a favor and exposing the insidious vapidity of what We're All Supposed To Want.

There's a great article on the show here in New York Magazine, and Vanessa Grigoriadis is a first-class journalist. I especially like this little Baudrillardian nugget on New York:

Post-crash, the city is a symbol of spiritual emptiness, an island of lost souls, almost submerged in colorful cocktails. And much of America wants to laugh at New Yorkers suffering for their sins.

We sure do!

Grigoriadis continues: "New York is a Louis XIV court, beautiful and decadent, making nothing, obsessed with its own intrigue, on its way out."

New York is home to the defining values of modern America, which has finally folded in on itself thanks to the hyper-consumerism/greed/self-worship that our culture is rooted in. You can't help but view the frantic self-obsession of these teenagers and their plastic middle-aged counterparts as merely a response to the fact that they're already embarrassing and irrelevant and they'll soon be extinct.

Grigoriadis' article will probably make you blow fewer blood vessels than actually watching the show, at least. Enjoy and be thankful you're not a completely non-self-aware symptom and cause of the end of America.


Also, so I know I said I was out of here in hopes of "making a difference" in other ways than inflicting this screed on the masses.

Yeah right.

As long as things continue to offend my and your sensibilities as sentient piles of organic matter, I'll be sitting behind my work computer and bitching about said cultural holocaust. And I'll be expecting your comments on how to fix it too.