This one burns, Idiocracy
It seems like there has been a steady stream of famous entertainers dying unexpectedly over the last few years but none have saddened me as much as the news that Chester Bennington from Linkin Park, killed himself yesterday via hanging.
Without a doubt, Linkin Park has been my favorite musical group of the last twenty years. Their mostly dark, angry music connected to me in a way that few others have. Despite the the downer vibe in a lot of their music I found it’s effect on me to be just the opposite, it pumped me up.
It is sobering to know the voice that brought me all of that energy over the years has now been silenced forever. The fact that he willingly turned off his own lights gives a sense to just how dark a person’s life can be, even when seemingly surrounded by light.
A lot of YouTubers are talking about Logan and Jake Paul, brothers who each have YouTube channels that are exploding in popularity. I was familiar with Logan from my days on Vine, the 6 second video service that is no longer around. Logan was very popular on there. So anyway I was curious what all the fuss was about so I went to his channel and watched one of his daily vlogs.
Wow, if there ever was a YouTube channel encapsulating everything disturbing about the state of youth in America, this is it. (Logan is 22) The videos are a perfect fit for the constantly distracted, ADD riddled, smartphone addicted young people of today. It seems that Logan leans heavily on his Vine background in his video style. No segment goes more than 10 seconds without a jump cut and the video was filled mostly with loud, idiotic, or ridiculous behavior. His brother’s channel is basically more of the same.
Evidently being a moron/maniac is a very lucrative field. By conservative estimates, each brother is likely pulling in between 1 and 2 MILLION dollars per MONTH from their channels. That is incredible. I can only hope the persona he puts out there on video is not who he really is. To me, as a rapidly approaching half centenarian, the idea that this sort of entertainment is wildly popular just makes me shake my head, lean back on my rocking chair, take a drag on my pipe and profess how kids today just don’t have a clue….
This weekend will be the last “standard” weekend for awhile. Next week Cindy and I are going to the Supercon in Ft Lauderdale and the next two weekends we will be rolling through our northeastern road trip. I look forward to stuff like this but also have trepidation at the same time.