Don’t Be Surprised
22nd September 2021
In the space of one week, we have been subjected to the Met Gala, the Emmys, and the 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly—three orgies of preening self-congratulation by disgraceful narcissists. Besides their total uselessness to society, these nauseating pageants have a few other things in common: they feature inane political statements by people with distinguished track records of feckless idiocy, they cost exponentially more money than they are worth, and they are forced relentlessly into our field of vision despite the fact that, if we have even a little dignity, we find them repulsive.
It has become standard practice to dismiss these sorts of spectacles as “irrelevant.” In one sense that is true: they are the farcical dying gasps of an American monoculture that was long ago hollowed out into a skin suit for entitled mediocrities to cover the nakedness of their souls. Though the Emmys’ ratings ticked up slightly this year, their overall pattern this millennium has been one of steady decline. Your average American has far more pressing things to do than mire his psyche in the interminable transcript of Biden’s speech to the U.N., and practically the only thing anyone has seen of the Met Gala was that dress AOC wore.