You Tube’s Stupidizing of America

YouTube is a cultural phenomenon, and a great resource. There is no arguing that. In the past, I have been excited to find things such as Montel Williams’ video for “This Is How We Do It.” I have showed my sons videos of me singing, and I have watched sports videos from the past.

But I also think that it often reveals how ignorant we are getting as a country. Take these 2 videos for instance. Watch the top one first, then the bottom one.

The cello\flute video has 1.5 million hits. The farting babies have 211 million hits. Now I don’t want to get into the philosophy of how videos go viral. There might be multiple reasons why the farting babies have 140 times as many hits, but my point is this. The more the technology advances, and the more widely available every bit of music and art that has ever been created is, the more that our society seems to be amused by the lowbrow, crass, gory, and idiotic.

The amount of creative energy and years of practice that went into making the music in the subway is 10,000 times that of the farting babies. I’m not saying that this style of music needs to be appreciated by everyone. I just think that we have such short attention spans and such aversions to liking anything that may seem “uppity”  or educated, that we would rather watch a morbidly obese child dancing (10 million hits) then Martin Luther King Junior’s  “I Have a You Dream” speech. (85,000 hits)

Now I’m not saying that the lowbrow, crass, gory and idiotic don’t have their place. I can burp longer than anyone reading this post.  But when we look at the discrepancy between the moronic and meaningful, we’re left wondering if there is much that society really cares about all.

Now who do I go punch for making that farting bubble baby video?