Popular entertainment forgets culture

A friend of mine contacted me a few weeks ago, claiming she had a “pop-culture emergency” on her hands.

She had watched VH1’s “Best Week Ever” and was intrigued by a deplorable Internet spectacle so vile that VH1’s celebrities dare not speak of its specifics.

Apparently, “moral depravity” constituted part of the best week ever. This video ““ “2 Girls, 1 Cup” ““ was so viral that, despite its content not being suitable for YouTube, some of YouTube’s most viewed and favored videos featured people simply reacting to watching it.

The crude content that is being so widely circulated ““ and our enthralled reactions to this content ““ point to a deterioration in popular culture.

One reaction video in particular is of Joe Rogan, host of “Fear Factor.” Rogan had to turn away several times and tried leaving the room. Apparently, fear was a factor for him.

So consider our curiosity piqued.

My friend’s problem, and mine, was that it dumbfounded us that, out of all the lewd minutiae that cable is able to package and edit for public consumption, there was something out there that was so vile that it could not even be vaguely alluded to.

The best thing about the Internet is that you can Google “horrible awful thing on VH1″ and still somehow click your way to what you’re looking for. The worst thing about the Internet was what I found.

My eyeballs are still searing from these unspeakable acts. I felt like dipping my laptop in Purell.

I thought I had seen so much; I thought I was ready. I was wrong.

Shortly after this video permeated my virginal consciousness, however, something weird happened.

It started when my roommate came home and I asked him if he had seen the crazy video. I positioned myself in a way so that I wouldn’t have to watch the hideous spectacle itself again, but could watch his live reaction.

Seeing somebody’s mind getting truly blown is immensely entertaining. It was as if Christmas had come early. People should gain approval for human subject testing for this kind of thing.

I feel hypocritical speaking abstractly about “shock sites” while admonishing VH1 for teasing viewers with something they can’t explicitly discuss.

This, in a way, is where our society is headed. When my friend called me with a pop-culture emergency, I didn’t realize that pop culture itself is actually in a state of emergency.

Maybe this started with the whole voyeurism and reality-TV epidemic of the ’90s. Surely, user-generated content on the Internet and now a writer strike have contributed to the prevalence of reality-based content.

But what about the devolution to popular culture itself? Clark Gable caused quite a flap in 1939 when he said “damn” in “Gone With the Wind.” In June 2001, Comedy Central’s “South Park” used the word “s–t” 162 times on national television, and people barely even blinked.

This could be a good or bad thing, depending on where you stand, but the layers of voyeurism now pose a problem.

This very column discusses my friend’s reaction to a VH1 show about people reacting to YouTube videos of other peoples’ reactions to something that has no merit or societal relevance but is offensive.

The pop culture crisis is not that what entertains us is getting worse, but that we are getting further removed from relevant content. The only way media can do this while still holding our attention is by resorting to lower and lower standards.

Since then, I’ve been introduced to various other shock sites, which are creatively pornographic, scatological or violent enough to induce the same original feelings of repulsion and awkward humor.

It seems that raising the bar by lowering it is the new pop-culture phenomenon.

In that case, 2008 is going to be the dirtiest year ever.

E-mail Aikins at raikins@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.

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