Everything Is Stupid

28
Jun

Jaded Model Seen Without Makeup, “Career Ruined”

In recent developments that mark the beginning of perhaps the most ridiculous lawsuit of all time, 35 year-old Swedish model Caroline Louise Forsling is suing cosmetic company Estee Lauder for $2 million for not photoshopping out her wrinkles in a recent ad for Plantscription serum by Origins, thus “irreparably” damaging her career. Can I just point out the perhaps jaded point of view that, if your career can’t survive with you being seen without makeup, maybe you shouldn’t be a model in the first place?

Alas, the beauty industry depends entirely on its ability to con women into thinking that they can achieve a standard of beauty that doesn’t exist. The controversial ad showed one half of Forsling’s face as is, without makeup and with her hair pulled back from her face. The other side has been manipulated with computer software to smooth her wrinkles and “lift sagging contours.” Forsling says she has never used the serum and did not consent to having the test shot used in the company’s advertising. For some reason, neither of these points makes up the mainstay of the court case. All Caroline seems to care about is that people have seen her as she actually appears. Gasp! No wonder she’s jaded!

This isn’t exactly the first time that the unrealistic manipulation of women’s bodies has made waves in the media. Jean Kilbourne, Ed.D. has been making documentaries about the issue for more than three decades, and, with the invention of Photoshop, the battle seems to be one of the uphill variety. The “Killing Us Softly” documentary series chronicles the issues that women and girls face when they become totally jaded by the images they see every day.

At their annual meeting recently, the AMA adopted specific policies to deal with a problem that seems to be growing as fast as models fake-waists seem to be shrinking. I’m probably overly jaded on the subject, but somehow it seems to me that making policies on things that a group has absolutely no say in whatsoever might not have quite the desired effect. Winners of the “State the Obvious Award” this week, they released the following statement:

The appearance of advertisements with extremely altered models can create unrealistic expectations of appropriate body image. In one image, a model’s waist was slimmed so severely, her head appeared to be wider than her waist. We must stop exposing impressionable children and teenagers to advertisements portraying models with body types only attainable with the help of photo editing software.

 

The photo mentioned above is a Ralph Lauren ad showing a woman who, were she real, would probably be a 6’6″ tall size zero with a 36D chest, a 20 inch waist and the most massive head that anyone has ever seen (and we all know that’s not the case). Examples of this kind of gross body dysmorphism are everywhere, and Ralph Lauren is the worst kind of repeat offender, turning women into jaded walking skeletons of the most frightening variety, and their constant presence on blogs like PhotoShopDisasters.com has led to a legal hissyfit of their own, because evidently it’s wrong to explain to people that women are supposed to have ribs and hips and stuff. PSD has enjoyed sharing with its audience tips and tricks for “fixing” images of unrealistic models to make them appear as if they actually have all the bones a body needs to stand upright, but Ralph Lauren doth protest.

Who needs those bones anyway?

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posted by BexvanKoot in Pop Culture Stupidity and have Comments Off
26
Jun

Dead Animals In the Water Supply – Bet You Feel Stupid Now, Portland

What is the grossest thing you can think of that might be hiding in your city’s water supply? Animal, mineral, bodily fluids? News that a 21 year-old man was caught urinating in one of Portland, Oregon’s open air water reservoirs at Mt. Tabor has sparked some serious controversy about conservation, health, and the truth about what is really flowing out of your kitchen faucets. The young man involved in the incident has yet to be charged, and has admitted to the stupid drunken act of peeing in the pool, thinking that it was a sewage treatment area. Does anyone wonder just exactly how foul Portland’s water must smell if passersby think that it’s actually sewage? Gross.

After being criticized for the decision to cost the city more than $35,000 in replacement and disposal fees by discarding the “tainted” water, the administrator for the local Water Bureau, David Schaff, made it clear that this was a political, not a health decision, when he admitted that the Water Bureau regularly finds dead animals floating in the city’s water supply and does nothing about it at all. “This is different,” he said. ”Do you want to drink pee?”

Well, no, I don’t… but I don’t usually want to drink the rotting and putrid flesh of random dead animals either, stupid. The disinfection process that Portland uses, putting both chlorine and ammonia into the H2O, is meant to continue to get rid of the nasties in the water even after it’s sat in open air containers for goodness knows how long. Take a moment to think about what “open air” means in this situation – not just random drunkards and dead animals, but birds flying overhead and leaving their mark, frog fornication, dogs running in to swim after lost toys and slobbering over sticks… Need I go on?

So, exactly just how gross is a bit of urine in the water supply? Let’s take a few minutes to do the math. The average human bladder contains about 16 ounces of urine at the time of necessitating emergency emptying into the closest open waterway. The water in the Portland reservoir totaled 6 million gallons at the time of this particular incident. One eighth of a gallon of urine to eight million gallons of water is a factor of about 64 million to one. Still with me?

Okay, now hang on while we examine the numbers a bit more… we’re going to get a bit metric here, just to be precise, okay? Don’t feel stupid if you get a little lost - just trust me on this one. A large tumbler glass might contain close to 500mL (probably less – 500mL is almost two cups – but we’re being generous here today). You would have to drink approximately 12,800 of these large glasses (say it with me, that’s more than twenty five thousand cups) of water directly from this specific reservoir to consume even 1 drop (0.1mL or 0.00338140227 US fluid ounces) of urine. Parents consume more urine from being shot in the mouth by their baby boys while changing a few months worth of diapers.

So, was it stupid for Portland to have emptied the reservoir over this one drunken incident? You be the judge.

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posted by BexvanKoot in Corporate Stupidity,Plain Ol' Stupidity,Pop Culture Stupidity and have Comments Off
25
Jun

Jaded Ohio Homeowners Association Prefers Pretending They Live In Canada

HOAs are so well known for their ridiculous rules that leave their neighbors broken and jaded that I’m surprised anyone lives in housing complexes or gated communities at all anymore. Still, story after story reaches the media telling the sad tales of people who didn’t read their handbook before moving in and signing their pact with the devil.

For 77 year-old US Army veteran Fred Quigley, the news from his HomeOwners Association that his American flag (or more accurately, his pole) is “against regulation” looks like it’s going to end in a court case. What could be more American? Apparently, being less than 20 miles from the shores of Lake Erie and so close to the border, the HOA seems to have let the Canadian seep in and have completely forgotten the rules of their state and country.

Other HOAs have wised up to the local laws and completely deny telling their home owners to take down their American flags, preferring to keep their illegal high-pressure tactics under wraps. Ah, they are starting to smarten up…. is it time to be afraid of the big bad HOAs? Hmm, let’s see. What other kinds of crazy rules have these community dictators come up with?

How about telling a disabled man that he doesn’t need a handicapped parking spot for his wheelchair accessible van or telling an entire neighborhood and the Homes for Our Troops organization that they can’t build a pre-approved new house for an injured vet… because their plans are too small - not jaded enough for you? Alright then, let’s continue with the HOA disasters, shall we?

Can you imagine facing jail time and foreclosure for planting too many roses? Or not enough grass? These particular rules are a little bit lame, but not quite so jaded that they are completely lacking any kind of human emotion just yet. To that end, how about the story of a man who lost his entire family when a plane fell from the sky and destroyed his home. His HOA, unfazed by the fact that the man couldn’t stand the thought of rebuilding his home exactly as it was and being constantly reminded of what he lost, sent notice via legal counsel to let the man know that his shingles didn’t match the other houses in the neighborhood, flat out refusing to have any kind of discussion with the man in person. Compassionate, huh?

Still feeling safe in your assumption that your HOA’s rules still won’t really affect you, baring major accidents or gardening mishaps? You’re in luck! Courts have recently upheld an HOAs right to control your actions not just in your yard, but in the privacy of your own bathroom, banning cigarette smoking in the shower and on the toilet (and your balcony, and your patio, and your courtyard, and the poolside….)! After all, people want their open spaces to be safe and clean for kids to play, right? Oh wait, no. Wrong. It seems that HOAs are also completely jaded about children. In central Florida, the Edgewater HOA recently proposed rule changes to ban children from play outside, including toying with Big Wheels, skateboards and playing tag. The proposal suggests that parents could be fined $100 for every violation. According to one jaded HOA board member, Kim Scott:

They came in and rented in a community that does not have a playground and is not conducive to children. Then they expect the children to play in the driveways and parking lot. You wouldn’t see them playing in the parking lot at Walmart or Kmart, but they come here and turn the children loose.

Note to prospective renters: if your HOA compares your house to a Walmart, maybe you should just walk away.

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posted by BexvanKoot in Corporate Stupidity and have Comments Off
13
Jun

MTV Inspires a New Generation of Jaded Baby-Haters

If you’re one of the few jaded adults who has actually seen the teen-mommy programming that MTV offers, and you’re saddened and scared that the network is glamorizing pregnancy and parenthood to vulnerable young teens, you are in luck. They’d prefer to have abortions instead!

The Millennials, Abortion and Religion Survey was conducted early last week at the Brookings Institution by the “Public Religion Research Institute,” which describes itself as “a non-profit, nonpartisan research and consulting firm specializing in work at the intersection of religion, values and public life.” According to the institute:

The Millennials, Abortion and Religion Survey [...] is one of the largest public opinion surveys on abortion and religion ever conducted. The survey also finds that there are large generational differences on two issues that have often been linked in political discourse: abortion and same-sex marriage.

I doubt that will come as any surprise to our jaded readers, but don’t give up hope for a little bit of novelty just yet. What seems to be the most interesting thing about this study is its focus on the not-just-music-videos-any-more cable network MTV. According to the research, 71% of the so-called “millennials,” or those aged 18 to 29, had seen a television show about pregnancy. Of those, 29% had seen one of the two MTV series “Teen Mom” or “16 and Pregnant” (only about 17% of the general population can claim the same).

Here is where it starts to get interesting. Among viewers of the jaded youth reality shows, regardless of age, the approval rate for abortion as a moral issue sat at 65%, a full 9 points higher than in the general public. It seems that watching babies having babies does the exact opposite of what conservative news media has been claiming, which isn’t much of a surprise to me – does puke and poop really seem all that glamorous to you?

Aside from “the MTV effect,” some other interesting issues came to light in this study of today’s youth – primarily that they are indecisive. Or, rather, that their ability to make moral judgments is based not on hard and fast rules, but on personal circumstances. I know, just awful right? I mean, how is someone supposed to run a country if they have to hear everyone’s story in order to make a decision about what’s right and wrong? Geez!

The research showed that about two-thirds of the youth surveyed identified with both pro-choice and pro-life labels, depending on the circumstances (in politico speak, this is called being “wishy-washy”). Along with “the MTV effect,” scientists identified “the friendship effect” and “the ultrasound effect” – in other words, without a highly developed capacity to empathize with others, youth were only likely to take a pro-choice stance if they had personal experience (either on their own or with a friend) with abortion, whereas those who had experiences seeing ultrasound images of a friend’s fetus were much more likely to take the side of pro-lifers.

Do we understand what this really means for the millennial generation? These poor, jaded souls actually believe that the baby-mommas on MTV are their peers. I know it’s reality TV, people, but come on! I don’t care how jaded you are, the television is not your friend.

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posted by BexvanKoot in Pop Culture Stupidity and have Comments Off
12
Jun

Movie Texter Sounds Even More Stupid On the Phone

A lesson to all you Austin movie-goers out there today… do not mess with the Alamo Drafthouse. And if you really can’t be bothered to pay attention to their few simple rules, at least do your best to sound like a complete idiot when you call in to complain to their voicemail, so the friendly folks in the audience (and around the world, now that this thing has gone viral) can laugh at you being stupid for years to come.

The Alamo Drafthouse has been around for more than a decade, serving alcohol and full meals with ninja-trained waiters-in-black who move silently through the dark aisles to provide you with delicious sustenance. The theater, which now has a dozen locations in Texas and one in Virginia, is infamous not only for its cabaret style seating, unique food and drink service, complete lack of super lame ads and most excellent movie theme nights, but also for its very strict rules. No children under 6 years old and no unaccompanied minors are allowed, for the obvious reasons that crying babies suck (get a babysitter, parents) and teenagers in groups are infinitely more stupid than in singles or pairs.

In addition, there is to be absolutely no talking, no cell phones and, most recently, no texting during the film. The Alamo isn’t shy about the rules. They remind their customers with short on-screen announcements before every film to keep quiet and leave the electronic devices out of sight. For fans of the Alamo who don’t really like the rules, they even provide exceptions – the “Quote-Along” events which allow you to shout out your favourite lines along with the stars, and the “Heckle Vision” nights which give you the ability to comment on the film via text messages that will actually show up on the screen for everyone to see. How cool is that?!? If for some reason you don’t listen to reason and persist with annoying behaviour, they will not hesitate to kick you out flat on your ass. No refunds.

Unfortunately for a recent patron (and very fortunately for us!), a theater that serves beer and has a tendency to kick out the unruly is pretty much required to have a sense of humour. The young woman who left this mostly-comprehensible voicemail, which you can listen to in the video below, obviously tipped back a few too many before (and during, and after) her show, then decided to call in her angry complaint after being ousted from the theater for texting incessantly. Now her stupid, angry rants will live on long after her hangover, because the Alamo has adopted this video version of her slurred speech as their new anti-texting public service announcement, which plays before every R-rated movie to remind everyone how stupid texters are… and you know, not to do it. Bet you feel special now, don’t ya, stupid?

Check out the censored version here, if your ears can’t handle cursing. There’s a lot of it. Seriously.

Hopefully this lovely young lady can find another “reglear theater” to text in somewhere else in the “Magnited States of America,” because it’s pretty clear that the Alamo doesn’t want her or her kind coming back any time soon.

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posted by BexvanKoot in Media Stupidity,Pop Culture Stupidity,Technology Stupidity and have Comments Off
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