The Cult of Personality

Civilization isn’t yet being sucked into a massive black hole, but the world as we know has changed irreparably thanks in part to American Idol.

I don’t even watch the show (wink-wink), but last night saw parts of it that were, um, exciting and scary and may portend a further deterioration of American civic and cultural life.

Verna and I were set to view (on a rented DVD) the rest of part one of Empire Falls, an HBO miniseries starring Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Ed Harris, and others. But Verna is also hooked on Idol, so we had to switch back and forth between the two programs.

Last night’s Idol featured clips of the three remaining contestants’ rousing returns to their hometowns. As I was watching, I was dumbfounded at all the adoration lavished on three guys who are contestants on a cheeky reality show.

They haven’t even won anything yet and may never score big in the music world, but literally thousands of people (close to 20,000 for Kris Allen) showed up at venues in their hometowns to celebrate the returns of the not exactly Prodigal Sons.

And then it hit me as grown women cried when Adam Lambert shook their hands or autographed their t-shirts and little girls and pubescent females cried, actually cried, when one of the three touched them: Why are these guys so popular? What have they done to deserve any accolades outside a good swift pat on the back?

They haven’t stood up for any important causes or been role models for changing the world. They’re just competing in a rather shallow singing competition.

I am not trying to single out American Idol for all my reproach. But AI is another symptom of what I think is wrong in our cultural universe. I’ll call it (not originally) the Cult of Personality, whereby we elevate minor players on the cultural stage to the status of Very Important People.

We do it with athletes. We do it with actors and actresses. Remember Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers, in which two serial murderers attained celebrity status? How many jailed deviants receive wedding proposals or get married to female admirers? Far too many to count, I think.

Facebook and other online social networks (Twitter, MySpace) are also serious parts of the problem. And bloggers. We have created a sub-society where we actually think (or don’t care) that people want to know (or don’t) the minutiae of our days and our thoughts.

And we do not shy away from letting people know just about everything (and, believe me, I am just as guilty as anyone). Today’s Facebook, for example: someone notified us about watching the finale of a TV show; someone wrote about nature; several people mentioned the end of their college semesters.

Not all of it is inane, er, mundane. One woman shared the awesome news of her second pregnancy. So social networking as a medium to update people and keep us in contact with those we’d otherwise never phone is a good thing.

It’s just that…I don’t know…I feel we are getting carried away. Do I really need to know if someone is overwhelmed by housework or that another has a cold? On the other hand, there is something delightfully democratic about being able to commandeer such a large forum and grab people’s attention. Why should the world of communication be reserved for the professional talking heads, pundits, journalists, and has-been political hacks? Everyone has a right to express him- or herself, and social networking makes it so much easier.

Maybe, though, it would be better if people went back to holiday letters. Just kidding (though I send one every year). Cyberspace has altered the communication landscape for better and worse.

I realize that my rant is rather hypocritical given that I blog (and advertise my blog on Facebook and via email). But, hey, nobody’s perfect. But given that I am not, what kind of homecoming parade might I expect in Bloomfield, CT this summer?

Two-Faced

A couple of weeks ago, I half-seriously responded on Facebook that I was trying to invite more friends so I could surpass my brother. We're not really competitive with each other, but our unofficial contest turned into a relatively fun and harmless battle.

Now that I have been friending people I know or people who know someone I know, I've had time (too much time) to reflect on the Facebook phenomenon.

Part of me feels as if I am at an AA meeting: "Hi, my name is Steve, and I have 378 friends." And then everyone would respond dutifully, "Hi, Steve, welcome. My name is_____, and I have______friends."

Do we measure our worth or social status now by the number of friends we acquire on Facebook? One of my former students has over 1600 friends. It would take me 30 minutes just to scan her list, and see who I might invite now in order to pad my own totals. What is the record for friends?

I even found out that I could become friends with one of the brew pubs we frequent. Yes, you can request to become a friend of Moylan's Brewery and Restaurant in Novato, CA. We've been there many times and enjoy it, so I figured why not? Then I noticed that one of my friends had Kelly's Irish Bar in San Francisco on his list. Well, I've driven past it several times. Boom. Now I am friends with a bar I've never been to.

Last night my brother and I were talking and I said, "This whole Facebook thing is kind of crazy. I feel as if I am often eaves-dropping in other people's living rooms."

He agreed.

Just scanning the Facebook home page, which contains comments from everyone on your list and responses from everyone--potentially--on their lists, ad infinitum and nauseum. I mean, do we see where this is going? It is exponentially mind boggling how many links and connections are being established over what is often slivers of minutiae from our lives.

My brother recently wrote how he was watching the Oscars and was baffled that Beyonce appeared to be lip-synching. He got several responses, one of which noted that he was not paying attention to Beyonce's lips.

A neighbor of ours wrote that her 2 1/2-year old son was no longer wearing diapers. She said, "Can you believe Luca is wearing Elmo underwear?" She got several responses for that. And why not? It was a momentous time for her, and so many of us could relate.

People upload videos, photographs, comment on what they are doing at that very moment, and then friends, Romans, countrymen respond with a flurry of their own comments, to which the original posters respond some more.

It's enough to make me dizzy. And I haven't even said anything about the dark side of Facebook. Facebook recently removed over 5000 sexual predators from their social networking site. I guess the opportunities to connect with friends, family, and associates in a living, breathing class reunion also invites slimebuckets of the earth to promote their nefarious urges.

I recently finished writing an article about community access TV, the public access stations you find on channel 26, etc. The director of one station said the power of community access TV is its democratic appeal. "Anyone," he said, "with an idea can stake a claim to the airwaves."

I think Facebook is just like that in many ways. We get a chance to grab the microphone and shout, "Hey, pay attention to me. I matter."

So, excuse me, I have some more "friends" to invite into my orbit and some wall writing to do. I'll be busy "dropping" in on someone I haven't seen in 30 years. Welcome to my neighborhood.