Sit down, everybody. Quickly: this week we have a grave situation that needs my immediate attention.
So far my tour of duty on The Chronicle's staff has been mostly sunshine and lollipops, with the occasional rainbow. The toughest issues I've tackled have been eating on campus and the much ballyhooed student activities fee increase. With so much suffering in the world, wouldn't you want your mid-sized American college weekly newspaper humor columnist to be a bit more socially responsible?
Well, I certainly would. Which is why I'd like to take some time to tackle a growing problem that I've swept under the rug for many months.
What could I possibly be talking about that is both so severe and so lasting? If you guessed one of the side effects of Cialis, you would be correct.
Just kidding. I would actually like to discuss America's seemingly irreversible cultural decline.
There is simply no escaping America's downward spiral into smut. From rampant irresponsible blogging to degrading celebutante escapades, America seems to be in an inexorable cultural free fall. One cannot turn on the television without a story about Britney Spears' weight or an ad for retail landfill Target. And don't even get me started on reality television. between episodes of Survivor: Loire Valley ("I went foraging and all I could find was a damn Beaujolais Nouveau") and Flavor of Love 12 ("Yeahh boyee, I really dig Seattle, but Pigface is more my kinda homegirl"), our brains are becoming as cheap as the shows' production values. I'm simply waiting for the day that I'll turn on my TV to find Verne Troyer on ABC's new hit series, "Dancing with the White Dwarves."
When did this obsession with celebrity, commercialism and baseness begin? When a 15 year-old got naked for a Vanity Fair article? When the first season of "Temptation Island" aired?
No matter when this descent began, the fact remains it has resulted in Perez Hilton becoming better known than Jonathan Safran Foer. Talk about injustice.
And lest we think that we are immune to this cultural decline because we live within the great Gothic Bubble, I submit that we are not. Although isolated, our campus still reflects many issues within America at large. Dukies often brag that the school's motto is "Work hard, play harder," and our culture's emphasis on "effortless perfection" can contribute to the anti-intellectualism that has recently plagued the good old U.S. of A.
Take a perfect, Duke-related example of this cultural pettiness: JuicyCampus.
Although the site has markedly declined in popularity since its inception (thank Allah), it remains a stalwart bastion of stupidity. Anonymous posters actually spend time analyzing "juicy" topics about Duke and other schools; time which could be spent on much more worthwhile things, such as cleaning up litter or watching paint dry.
Now, I know there are those of you out there who vehemently despise JuicyCampus. Well, if you think you hate it, imagine how much I hate it. It gives anonymity a bad name. It makes a mockery of the sanctity of identity that I value so much. For shame.
Anyway, the Web site is absurd. The fact that people spend time writing about fraternity "power moves" and ranking sororities should be, to a sane person, reprehensible. Instead, the site provides a dumping ground for many of the social and cultural topics that many Duke students think about every day. If the site's posts were aberrations, unrelated to normal Duke life, that would be one thing. But because such a silly Web site accurately, though anonymously, reflects actual Duke issues, it is clear that Duke suffers from some of the same cultural failings as America.
Some of you might be wondering how we can correct this great American mind-numbing. I believe that it starts in the home. If parents raise their children as they should (i.e. watching Ken Burns documentaries instead of Laguna Beach), JuicyCampus message boards would be riddled with discussions of string theory and Nietzsche. As my main audience is either too old to be molded or too young (I hope) to have children, however, we have to think of other ways in which we can improve ourselves and our culture.
To get things going, I've got a simple one: how about we start liking each other and stop all the petty social climbing? Maybe, the next time you're about to post on (or even visit) JuicyCampus, go to CNN.com instead. Better yet, cruise over to duke.edu and check out some events on campus.
I don't mean to sound preachy, but I did, so there's no turning back now. Certainly, I don't expect a change overnight. I have no false notions that tomorrow will dawn with unprecedented lines at the Nasher and everyone holding hands singing Kumbaya. But I urge everyone at Duke to look at the ways in which America's culture is in trouble and work to fight it here at Duke. Like Captain Planet said, "the power is yours."
Now back to my "Best Week Ever" marathon.
Meeting adjourned.
THE CHAIRMAN thought JuicyCampus was the newest Duke smoothie bar. How wrong he was.
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