I’ve made my list, checked it twice, and am fairly certain it’s complete.
Said list is composed of hot topics in 2011 that gained much, much more attention that I honestly felt they deserved – so much attention that they need to be forgotten and never spoken of ever again.
I now present them to you, in no particular order, along with brief explanations/personal comments. Here we go.
3D TV: Right from the very get-go, I always felt that 3D TV was a gimmick. There’s no way anybody in their right mind would want to nor should sit in their own home wearing goofy, high-tech 3D glasses to watch movies or TV shows. Those glasses, by the way, can run up to $400 a pair – a bit much if you happen to leave them out and let the dog find them. It just seems like a way to try and sell the public on 3D movies in theaters, then get them to buy the film on Blu-ray once released. It’s a technological money grab clusterfuck that hasn’t caught on and probably never will.
Justin Bieber: What else is there to say? Can we do our best to make 2012 and each year forward Bieber-free?
Carmageddon: Here’s an explanation for those of you outside of the L.A. metro area. Carmageddon (as it was dubbed by the local media) was supposed to be the worst, most intolerable freeway closure in the history of forever. Taking place along one of the busiest stretches of the 405, the closure was required in order to repair one of the bridges along the Sepulveda Pass and as a result, residents in the area were actually urged to stay home that weekend. Jesus, even Ashton Kutcher tweeted about the closure. It was to be that bad.
The result? Absolutely nothing. The repairs were made in record time and traffic flowed around the area without all the forecasted gloom and doom. In fact, there were joggers and cyclists who took advantage of the closure by running and riding along the freeway. (They weren’t even cited, which was cool.) Carmageddon turned out to be a gigantic joke, and a spectacular example of how L.A. media can turn the smallest story into a potential nightmare.
Katy Perry’s “Firework”: Much like Jimmy Eat World’s “The Middle” from years ago, this song seemed to be featured in every ‘tween movie and no matter where you went, you heard I playing. All that aside, “firework” just doesn’t sound right in singular form.
Rebecca Black’s “Friday”: Yeah, we all know the story of how it happened. Now let’s erase the song, along with its off-brand crayon-quality lyrics, from our minds forever.
The Kardashians: I would imagine that being famous for nothing carries a lot of weight with it. I wouldn’t know. But if these are the kinds of role models we’re letting today’s young women look up to, then wow, we really need to reassess our priorities. Thank [insert appropriate deity here] I have a boy.
Occupy [insert city of choice]: Okay, occupiers, I get it. You’re pissed off. Who isn’t these days? But pitching tents and waving signs in random city locations will do little if nothing to persuade the Big Bank president from walking down from his penthouse to hear you out. He wouldn’t even waste his time micturating upon you from there because there’s a chance he might get his stacks of $100 bills, the ones he uses to light his Cuban cigars, soiled. I do agree with you to a point but it seems like nothing has been, nor ever will be, accomplished.
Planking: When I first heard of this planking, I thought it was somehow related to waterboarding because it just sounded like some kind of torture device. Turns out I was wrong – dead wrong. This weird yet stupid phenomenon involves a jackass who is willing to lie face-down in an unusual (more than likely, very conspicuous) place and another jackass who will take the picture for them. And for what? To post them online as part of some kind of idiotic game. And I thought people in the ‘50s were stupid when they would stuff telephone booths for fun.
Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep”: This, along with the aforementioned Katy Perry song, ranks up there as one of the most overplayed, saturated songs of 2011. And if you think you heard it ad nauseam, try living two houses down from a neighbor whose daughter sang it for a show and rehearsed it continuously for about a week. For those reasons, I’d be perfectly happy if I never heard it again.
“Tebowing”: Much like planking, I took this term to mean something entirely different when I first heard of it. Namely, I thought it was some kind of cruel bullying game that kids were playing in school since I heard some were and still are getting in trouble for it. But no, it turned out that Tebowing was named after NFL player Tim Tebow who has made a habit of kneeling and praying during each game. Ironically, and unfortunately, Tebowing might just be the next form of planking if this website has anything to do with it.
Well, that’s it. Now let’s never speak of any of them ever again.
And have a safe, happy, prosperous, and Bieber-free 2012.
