An ominous shadow of mediocrity casts over pop culture. It’s as ever-present as it is gloomy. You’d think I’d be used to it, being born into Reagan’s America and all. To some sad extent, I am used to it. Used to the kink in my neck obtained from shaking my head in disapproval toward whatever’s being spat at me. Lately, though, it’s just been a little harder to dismiss the distaste. The media’s behavior is beyond unscrupulous. It’s deplorable. Downright shitty, if you will. If you won’t, you should. Trust me on this one.

I can’t check out at Ralph’s and pass the magazine rack without catching a hideous glimpse of how warped the media’s sensibilities are in my peripherals. I can’t make a trip around the dial without being stalked by banality. We’re practically smothered by it. Just when you think they’ve bottomed out in the quality/ taste department, the rabid rodents keep burrowing lower.

Who likes mediocrity? Most people. What do they know? Not enough, unfortunately. Power in numbers, being what it is, those of us with…(what’s the word…haven’t heard it used in so long)…standards, we have to be exposed to what has been deemed acceptable by people that don’t know any better. We are setting a trend for future generations, and most of the people molding that future have one curled hand rested on their chest.

Is MTV even trying anymore? Years of not playing any music, let alone any tolerable music; years of scripting reality shows; years of barely making any indication of an effort to please their mush-minded minions has turned the network into the fat, lazy, dazed and sterile shit machine that undermines creative evolution today. Movie award ceremonies were held earlier in the month. Usually the “shocking” moments are pretty easily recognized as being planted, but the phoniness was just out loud and blatant this time around.

The piece of writing that lead into the Sandra Bullock/ Scarlett Johansson kiss was, from the viewpoint of a writer and a viewer, sloppy. Lay-z. Painful to watch, even. It took anyone working with slightly more than retard brains out of the moment the show was “trying” to create. Not that, had it been executed more tightly, I would of believed that A-list actresses like to spontaneously lesbo out on one another whenever the urge so happens to arise- but what transpired couldn’t have come off as seeming more unnatural. I’m not griping as some panting perv, feverishly wiping his clammy palms on his sweat panted knees, instructing the girlies in the TV to “make Daddy believe it.” I’m not that guy. I’m griping because I despise manufactured, non-shocking snippets like this that are sold as being the opposite. It leaves the lingering taste of Splenda in my mouth. Much like Sandra left Scarlett with the lingering taste of third-hand Nazi stripper twat in her mouth.

After decades of a steady nose-dive decline, MTV wants to be part of whatever the kids are calling the counter culture these days, even though they consciously offer a lame product to people with dictated tastes. There’s nothing revolutionary about that.

Another troubling aspect of the kiss was the fact that Betty White had just fumbled through some outrageous observations that certainly weren’t age appropriate. That gag will never tire. SNL didn’t drive the final nails in that coffin. Yes, that was factiousness. I have nothing personal against that sweet, decrepit ol’ biddy. I’m not saying she should join her cast-mates for The Afterlife Presents: Golden Girls on Broadway. I just hate how the industry uses her. I don’t blame Betty for playing along with a bad, yet profitable, formula. If Hollywood offered my grandma Betty White money to regurgitate dick jokes from over-sized cue cards; well, let’s just say I’d have some digging to do.

MTV enjoyers are ignorant, desensitized and they have an immature pallet. In some severe cases, they’re partially lobotomized. I’ll accept that explanation. That checks out. What I fail to understand is: who’s in the market for hauntingly morbid Gary Coleman photographs? Poor guy, left this world prematurely as a frustrated security guard in need of an insecurity guard. I can’t see how someone can justify having an interest in what Globe magazine is offering. Seeing him on the cover like that was even more disturbing than seeing him on magazine covers when he was alive. Luckily, Larry David on the TV Guide cover was standing by as a suitable shield. If the media had a soul, it’s brutal ugliness would be reflected in the pain and misery shown on the front of that waste of a tree of a magazine. Also seen in the photo was the woman that, at the very least, killed Coleman’s spirit. I hope he knew better than to include her in his what you talkin’ ’bout WILLis. Expect a reality show from her in the fall. It’s the (new) American way.

I wish all that was bad and wrong, like the above mentioned, ceased to be and that we could start over with a purely quality template. I know asking for integrity in journalism is naïve of me. Especially considering programming like TMZ is flourishing like the venereal rash that it is. It has become painstakingly clear: as long as the majority rules, the minority shall suffer. I think Gandhi said that. It was either Mahatma Gandhi or Todd Bridges.