Somethin' Stupid, like, I LOATHE you
Are you smarter than the average American?
1. Name a country that starts with the letter "U".
A. Yugoslavia
B. Utah
C. Utopia
D. United States of America
E. United States of America, Uzbekistan, Uruguay, Uganda, United Arab Emirates (which includes Umn Al Qaiwain), United Kingdom, Ukraine
2. How many sides does a triangle have?
A. Um, four?
B. Five
C. One
D. It has no sides
E. Three
3. Who won the Vietnam War?
A. We did
B. Were we in the Vietnam War?
C. Whut?
D. South Vietnam
E. North Vietnam
4. What is "collateral damage"?
A. A movie
B. Uh?
C. Damage intended for an enemy which happens to hurt or injure allies or your own troops
D. i frag j00
E. PWN3D
5. Who took office after President Kennedy was shot?
A. Carter
B. Johnson
C. Roosevelt
D. Nixon
E. Ford
6. What state is the White House in?
A. Washington
B. Philadelphia
C. Pennsylvania
D. Virginia
E. Maryland
F. *Nerdy answer about districts and states goes here*
7. Can you find France on a world map?
A. *puts map flag on Australia*
B. *puts map flag on Nigeria*
C. No
D. Aren't we calling that "Freedom" now, or something?
E. *puts map flag on France*
8. How many sides does a square have?
A. Five
B. Two
C. Four
D. It doesn't have any sides
E. Pi are square
9. What part of speech indicates "active voice" or "passive voice?"
A. Adjectives
B. Verbs
C. Nouns
D. Adverbs
E. Conjunctions
10. A "surge protector" guards against unexpected surges in what?
A. Electric current
B. Flooding
C. Buyer's Remorse
D. Lack of caffeine
E. Sexual harassment
11. Which of the following is the largest?
A. A peanut
B. A monkey
C. A tennis ball
D. The moon
E. An elephant
12. What is the everyday name for "trachea"?
A. Breastbone
B. Funny bone
C. Windpipe
D. Kneecap
E. Adam's apple
13. Which of these revolves around the Earth?
A. The Moon
B. The Sun
C. Earth
D. Venus
E. Pluto
14. What is a "mosque"?
A. An animal
B. A girdle-like garment
C. A hat
D. A place for religious rites
E. A country in Africa
15. Who is Tony Blair?
A. An actor
B. A skater
C. A politician
D. Iron Man!
E. That guy who shouts on commercials for cleaning products
16. Tuna is chicken. True or false?
A. It says "chicken of the sea," T
B. Tuna is a fish, dumbass, so F
C. I'm confused
D. Can I ask Nick Lachey?
E. Who is Nick Lachey?
F. I am ashamed that I know who Nick Lachey is. Help me.
17. How many months in a year have 30 days?
A. Five
B. Seven
C. This is a trick question. Eleven.
D. This is a trick question. One.
E. Twelve
18. What continent is also a country?
A. All of them
B. United States
C. Japan
D. Australia
E. Antarctica
19. What currency do they use in England?
A. Dollars
B. Queen Elizabeth's money
C. Euro
D. Pound
E. Lsd
20. What currency do they use in Ireland?
A. Punt
B. Irish Pound
C. Euro
D. Dollar
E. Bragh
21. What is the predominate religion in Israel?
A. Israeli
B. Catholic, probably
C. Muslim
D. Jewish
E. What is predominate?
22. Fire is hot. Y/N?
A. What kind of fire are we talking about?
B. Let's find out.
C. Not if it is made out of tissue paper.
D. Yes. Yes, it is.
E. What is fire? Did we invent it?
23. Do they speak Latin in Latin America?
A. Yes
B. No
C. Si
D. Agricola
E. No one "speaks" Latin anymore.
The video that spawned this rant is here. Follow links to related ones to see more cringe-worthy idiocy. Now, I'm the first to give people some slack for being camera shy, put on the spot, nervous, asked something that has no relevance to their daily existence...but honestly, there's a limit to the excuses I can make.
DangerouslyIrrelevant.Org has an interesting counter argument (in short, why should we bother to learn anything that can be looked up within seconds online?) but I (mostly) disagree with it. Some basic knowledge should be KNOWN, darn it. A power outage or lack of computer or library access shouldn't render your ability to answer basic questions null and void.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel thought it would be fun to have local teachers create a twenty-question quiz on stuff fifth-graders ought to know. Here are the questions from the quiz, each of which is hyperlinked to the Google search results for the question text:
Go ahead. I dare you to compare the Google search results to the quiz answers. For nearly every question, the first or second Google link has the correct answer. In most instances, you don’t even need to click through to the actual web site. You can just read the short blurb for the link on the Google results page. [Also, note that question 14 is a trick question and that the teachers’ answer to question 20 may be incorrect (I think it should say chloroplasts, not cytoplasm).]
So now we’re not only spending all this time in school making kids memorize stuff that literally can be found in mere seconds, we’re actually making game shows out of it (like we’ve always done) and framing it in such a way so that grown-ups feel stupid if they don’t remember information that most adults never need to keep in their heads. Let’s be honest here: when is the last time you really needed to know the names of all five Great Lakes, whether or not animal cells have cell walls, or who invented peanut butter?
Okay, let's take the last three questions as an example: did I NEED to know those things? Perhaps not. But I DO know them. My recall is not limited to waiting around for my dial-up connection to access the Internet. If someone asks, I can answer, even if there's no computer in the room! Yay! (If you want to test your recall, I'll even give you a hint about the Great Lakes: HOMES.)
Should we blame the media for increased stupidity? Are Americans more stupid than the rest of the stupid people in other countries? Is the US public school system to blame? Nah, not one of those assumptions explains it fully. But certain people could certainly stand to read more books or PAY ATTENTION or something. You can choose not to watch the most stupid programming possible on cable, too.
How to figure out you have been watching a stupidity-enhancing channel on the TV
1. You are considering buying a male enhancement product that is too coy to use the word "penis".
2. You have started to loathe marimbas, and, by extension, all Carribbean music.
3. You have exhausted your feminist outrage and can only flail and squeak impotently when yet another "Girls Gone Wild" commercial airs.
4. When someone says "New York," you think of self-absorbed stupid black women first, and anything else at all next.
5. Everything is presented in list format.
6. Cat food commercials touting their "healthy" portions of tomatoes and vegetables and grain no longer make you fume with rage even though you know cats are obligate carnivores and can die on a vegetarian diet.
7. You have nightmares about The Burger King.
8. NASCAR sponsors everything.
9. Some tard with puppets comes on and proceeds to be completely unfunny for a half hour and you endure this.
10. You think that makeup made out of dirt and minerals--if you swirl, tap, and buff- won't look like you were hit in the face with cake mix and trapped in a giant food dehydrator for a week.
11. Every movie advert you see uses either the faux-Roman Trajan font or "funny fat big red letters" for its titles.
12. Fat white guys keep shouting at you to buy stuff to clean your house or, hey, to buy a new house (for ten dollars).
13. George Bush starts to sound like a Rhodes Scholar.
14. Even the people who type the closed captioning give up and use tags like "[incoherent mumbles]" or "[stuttering]" or they just omit several sentences entirely.
15. You stop noticing that for every diet pill commercial, you see two commercials for fast food and candy bars.
16. You stop wondering when "retarded tanorexic Barbie dolls" became attractive enough to tout pay-per-minute phone lines for "hot girls now," and start wondering when Fiesta Latina became a national franchise. (Fiesta Latina is a cinder-block mall in Atlanta full of plastic ho shoes and shiny flammable fabrics and Jesus Clocks From Hell.)
17. You write a rant on LiveJournal about the death of the suffix "-ly" and then cry yourself to sleep.
18. You just might be hooked on phonics.
19. You wonder who is actually buying those cheap CDs full of crappy songs.
20. People saying stupid things no longer surprise you. It has become the rule rather than the exception.
21. You realize you used to think that saying "way" instead of "very" was a cute slang quirk, but Wendy's has now annoyed you so much with their new painfully un-hip commercials ("eat WAY better, WAY later!") that it is no longer cute.
22. You are in the shower, humming a catchy tune, and suddenly realize it's "you can go, go, go with a HoveRound" or "looky, looky, looky, here comes Cookie: Cook's Pest Control." Target commercials and car ads start to look like fine art, in comparison.
24. You feel slightly motion-sick from the cheap handheld camera shots and crap editing choices, and note that, if you squint, any identity-blurring done is inadequate. Squinting trumps dancing pixels. Then you wonder why you are watching a show that would shame people enough that they'd have to try to conceal their identities in the first place. No Emmy for YOU!
25. You get annoyed by all the fast food advertisements that air long after the restaurant in question has closed for the night. Not only are they making crappy food look delicious, you can't even go GET any of the crappy food.
26. You learn that CVS and Walgreen's are not really stores, since they sell almost everything that claims it is "not available in stores" in adverts. Need a PedEgg? How about a Pocket Fisherman?
27. There will be absolutely no discussion of current events, literature, art, or international news. You will, however, know all about the latest twelve year olds making CDs for Disney, that buffed nails are the latest trend, that BOGO means Buy One Get One Half Off now (not Buy One Get One Free), that cortisol is why you are fat, and women buy cars because they want cup holders (unless they buy Cadillacs).
28. 90% of all males on these stupidity-inducing channels are retarded, impulsive, horny, dim-witted adult children without a clue about being responsible, truthful, or intelligent. They will do anything for beer, boobs or potentially fatal "sports" activities. 90% of all females on these stupidity-inducing channels are passive-aggressive, frigid (or nymphomaniacal), constipated mothers or would-be mommies (pet or husband will do in a pinch) without a clue about being financially prudent or emotionally mature. They will do anything for a pair of over-priced high heels, "fat free" snacks or a new household appliance.
29. You are annoyed that the cable company advertises itself on CABLE CHANNELS. Wouldn't it be smarter to advertise on network channels? People who see most cable company adverts already have cable. Also, I hate the Comcast turtles. Stop with the constant turtle adverts.
30. Every show has fourteen cartoons and spinnies and flashies and adverts running along the bottom of the screen advertising other shows that will abuse your screen real estate the same way. It was bad enough when news channels had three tickers going at all times. Now the Kryon or whatever it is always has dancing Will Smiths or Niecy Nashes or Flava Flavs or Cartmans and sound effects and crappy Microsoft WordArt-like font abuse titles constantly moving and making noise and being distracting.
31. These channels seem to think rich, famous people are interesting enough to have their own reality shows. The rich, famous people wind up looking vapid and boring. You start muttering "GO DIE IN A FIRE!" Obviously, reality sitcoms with rich, famous, STUPID, BORING, SELF-ABSORBED people encourage homicidal thoughts. Is that good? Really?
32. The laugh track must die. Either the show is not funny, or the people who produce the show think the audience is too stupid to know how to laugh after a joke. Hint: if you are tempted to add a laugh track to your show, it sucks. Stop what you're doing immediately and GO DIE IN A FIRE.
33. You can go, go, go in a HoveRound. I've fallen, and I can't get up. Old people get abused a lot on crappy television channels. Being anything but 13 to 23 years old is bad. You might as well die. It's very Logan's Run. Children are all supposedly smarter than adults on crappy TV channels. Why don't we just let the little monsters run the world (more than they do) and support themselves financially if they are so wise? When did being rude to your mom and dad = COMEDY GOLD? Never mind, the trend has been coming for decades. It's just a very old meme by now. I'd be stunned if a child was actually portrayed as being appropriately childlike on a show on a crappy TV channel.
34. Pills for EVERYTHING, with possible side effects that are FAR worse than the ailment they propose to cure. Also, what genius named AsiPhex? I don't want to take anything that sounds like "ass effects," thanks.
35. ADD jump cuts. No scene can possibly last longer than 20 seconds. Someone might change the channel! Quick, make more jump cuts, and draw attention to them with sound effects! Look, monkey! Banana! Shiny! No, don't look away! *boom, swoosh, bells* Same banana, new angle! Still shiny! *boom, swoosh, laugh track* EXTREEEEEEME close-up of banana! Argh. It's like watching someone else play a video game, badly.
This is why I watched a whole hour of flight attendants arguing on a news channel the other day. Boring legal testimonies were actually soothing compared to the usual nonsense. I learned something. Not ONCE did a dancing Walter Cronkite prance across the screen to urge me to stick around for a potentially life-saving and very important news story ("Parents Who Let Their Children Drink Lye, News At Eleven," or "What People You Do Not Know Personally Should Be Allowed To Do With Their Own Wombs, vote in our online poll!" or "Intelligent Design: Has Ben Stein Lost His Ever-Lovin' Mind or What? Our Pundits Think You Want Us To Give You Your Opinions...NEXT!").
1. Name a country that starts with the letter "U".
A. Yugoslavia
B. Utah
C. Utopia
D. United States of America
E. United States of America, Uzbekistan, Uruguay, Uganda, United Arab Emirates (which includes Umn Al Qaiwain), United Kingdom, Ukraine
2. How many sides does a triangle have?
A. Um, four?
B. Five
C. One
D. It has no sides
E. Three
3. Who won the Vietnam War?
A. We did
B. Were we in the Vietnam War?
C. Whut?
D. South Vietnam
E. North Vietnam
4. What is "collateral damage"?
A. A movie
B. Uh?
C. Damage intended for an enemy which happens to hurt or injure allies or your own troops
D. i frag j00
E. PWN3D
5. Who took office after President Kennedy was shot?
A. Carter
B. Johnson
C. Roosevelt
D. Nixon
E. Ford
6. What state is the White House in?
A. Washington
B. Philadelphia
C. Pennsylvania
D. Virginia
E. Maryland
F. *Nerdy answer about districts and states goes here*
7. Can you find France on a world map?
A. *puts map flag on Australia*
B. *puts map flag on Nigeria*
C. No
D. Aren't we calling that "Freedom" now, or something?
E. *puts map flag on France*
8. How many sides does a square have?
A. Five
B. Two
C. Four
D. It doesn't have any sides
E. Pi are square
9. What part of speech indicates "active voice" or "passive voice?"
A. Adjectives
B. Verbs
C. Nouns
D. Adverbs
E. Conjunctions
10. A "surge protector" guards against unexpected surges in what?
A. Electric current
B. Flooding
C. Buyer's Remorse
D. Lack of caffeine
E. Sexual harassment
11. Which of the following is the largest?
A. A peanut
B. A monkey
C. A tennis ball
D. The moon
E. An elephant
12. What is the everyday name for "trachea"?
A. Breastbone
B. Funny bone
C. Windpipe
D. Kneecap
E. Adam's apple
13. Which of these revolves around the Earth?
A. The Moon
B. The Sun
C. Earth
D. Venus
E. Pluto
14. What is a "mosque"?
A. An animal
B. A girdle-like garment
C. A hat
D. A place for religious rites
E. A country in Africa
15. Who is Tony Blair?
A. An actor
B. A skater
C. A politician
D. Iron Man!
E. That guy who shouts on commercials for cleaning products
16. Tuna is chicken. True or false?
A. It says "chicken of the sea," T
B. Tuna is a fish, dumbass, so F
C. I'm confused
D. Can I ask Nick Lachey?
E. Who is Nick Lachey?
F. I am ashamed that I know who Nick Lachey is. Help me.
17. How many months in a year have 30 days?
A. Five
B. Seven
C. This is a trick question. Eleven.
D. This is a trick question. One.
E. Twelve
18. What continent is also a country?
A. All of them
B. United States
C. Japan
D. Australia
E. Antarctica
19. What currency do they use in England?
A. Dollars
B. Queen Elizabeth's money
C. Euro
D. Pound
E. Lsd
20. What currency do they use in Ireland?
A. Punt
B. Irish Pound
C. Euro
D. Dollar
E. Bragh
21. What is the predominate religion in Israel?
A. Israeli
B. Catholic, probably
C. Muslim
D. Jewish
E. What is predominate?
22. Fire is hot. Y/N?
A. What kind of fire are we talking about?
B. Let's find out.
C. Not if it is made out of tissue paper.
D. Yes. Yes, it is.
E. What is fire? Did we invent it?
23. Do they speak Latin in Latin America?
A. Yes
B. No
C. Si
D. Agricola
E. No one "speaks" Latin anymore.
The video that spawned this rant is here. Follow links to related ones to see more cringe-worthy idiocy. Now, I'm the first to give people some slack for being camera shy, put on the spot, nervous, asked something that has no relevance to their daily existence...but honestly, there's a limit to the excuses I can make.
DangerouslyIrrelevant.Org has an interesting counter argument (in short, why should we bother to learn anything that can be looked up within seconds online?) but I (mostly) disagree with it. Some basic knowledge should be KNOWN, darn it. A power outage or lack of computer or library access shouldn't render your ability to answer basic questions null and void.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel thought it would be fun to have local teachers create a twenty-question quiz on stuff fifth-graders ought to know. Here are the questions from the quiz, each of which is hyperlinked to the Google search results for the question text:
- What is a hyperbole?
- Which chamber of the heart receives blood from the lungs?
- Is the equator a line of latitude or longitude?
- What is a mixed number?
- What organ in the body produces bile?
- What kind of a root is a carrot?
- Nomadic tribes of American Plains Indians lived in what structures?
- What did American Indians of the Northwest coast use to symbolize their clan and tell family stories?
- Which is larger: 3/5 or 5/8?
- What are the three branches of the United States government?
- What are the names of the five Great Lakes?
- How many hydrogen atoms are there in a molecule of water?
- "You are as strong as an ox." Is this statement a simile or metaphor?
- What part of speech is "after": An adverb, conjunction or preposition?
- Who invented peanut butter?
- How many pints are in 2 gallons?
- How many feet are in 9 yards?
- What part of speech describes a verb?
- What is a proper noun?
- What is something found on a plant cell that is not found on an animal cell?
Go ahead. I dare you to compare the Google search results to the quiz answers. For nearly every question, the first or second Google link has the correct answer. In most instances, you don’t even need to click through to the actual web site. You can just read the short blurb for the link on the Google results page. [Also, note that question 14 is a trick question and that the teachers’ answer to question 20 may be incorrect (I think it should say chloroplasts, not cytoplasm).]
So now we’re not only spending all this time in school making kids memorize stuff that literally can be found in mere seconds, we’re actually making game shows out of it (like we’ve always done) and framing it in such a way so that grown-ups feel stupid if they don’t remember information that most adults never need to keep in their heads. Let’s be honest here: when is the last time you really needed to know the names of all five Great Lakes, whether or not animal cells have cell walls, or who invented peanut butter?
Okay, let's take the last three questions as an example: did I NEED to know those things? Perhaps not. But I DO know them. My recall is not limited to waiting around for my dial-up connection to access the Internet. If someone asks, I can answer, even if there's no computer in the room! Yay! (If you want to test your recall, I'll even give you a hint about the Great Lakes: HOMES.)
Should we blame the media for increased stupidity? Are Americans more stupid than the rest of the stupid people in other countries? Is the US public school system to blame? Nah, not one of those assumptions explains it fully. But certain people could certainly stand to read more books or PAY ATTENTION or something. You can choose not to watch the most stupid programming possible on cable, too.
How to figure out you have been watching a stupidity-enhancing channel on the TV
1. You are considering buying a male enhancement product that is too coy to use the word "penis".
2. You have started to loathe marimbas, and, by extension, all Carribbean music.
3. You have exhausted your feminist outrage and can only flail and squeak impotently when yet another "Girls Gone Wild" commercial airs.
4. When someone says "New York," you think of self-absorbed stupid black women first, and anything else at all next.
5. Everything is presented in list format.
6. Cat food commercials touting their "healthy" portions of tomatoes and vegetables and grain no longer make you fume with rage even though you know cats are obligate carnivores and can die on a vegetarian diet.
7. You have nightmares about The Burger King.
8. NASCAR sponsors everything.
9. Some tard with puppets comes on and proceeds to be completely unfunny for a half hour and you endure this.
10. You think that makeup made out of dirt and minerals--if you swirl, tap, and buff- won't look like you were hit in the face with cake mix and trapped in a giant food dehydrator for a week.
11. Every movie advert you see uses either the faux-Roman Trajan font or "funny fat big red letters" for its titles.
12. Fat white guys keep shouting at you to buy stuff to clean your house or, hey, to buy a new house (for ten dollars).
13. George Bush starts to sound like a Rhodes Scholar.
14. Even the people who type the closed captioning give up and use tags like "[incoherent mumbles]" or "[stuttering]" or they just omit several sentences entirely.
15. You stop noticing that for every diet pill commercial, you see two commercials for fast food and candy bars.
16. You stop wondering when "retarded tanorexic Barbie dolls" became attractive enough to tout pay-per-minute phone lines for "hot girls now," and start wondering when Fiesta Latina became a national franchise. (Fiesta Latina is a cinder-block mall in Atlanta full of plastic ho shoes and shiny flammable fabrics and Jesus Clocks From Hell.)
17. You write a rant on LiveJournal about the death of the suffix "-ly" and then cry yourself to sleep.
18. You just might be hooked on phonics.
19. You wonder who is actually buying those cheap CDs full of crappy songs.
20. People saying stupid things no longer surprise you. It has become the rule rather than the exception.
21. You realize you used to think that saying "way" instead of "very" was a cute slang quirk, but Wendy's has now annoyed you so much with their new painfully un-hip commercials ("eat WAY better, WAY later!") that it is no longer cute.
22. You are in the shower, humming a catchy tune, and suddenly realize it's "you can go, go, go with a HoveRound" or "looky, looky, looky, here comes Cookie: Cook's Pest Control." Target commercials and car ads start to look like fine art, in comparison.
24. You feel slightly motion-sick from the cheap handheld camera shots and crap editing choices, and note that, if you squint, any identity-blurring done is inadequate. Squinting trumps dancing pixels. Then you wonder why you are watching a show that would shame people enough that they'd have to try to conceal their identities in the first place. No Emmy for YOU!
25. You get annoyed by all the fast food advertisements that air long after the restaurant in question has closed for the night. Not only are they making crappy food look delicious, you can't even go GET any of the crappy food.
26. You learn that CVS and Walgreen's are not really stores, since they sell almost everything that claims it is "not available in stores" in adverts. Need a PedEgg? How about a Pocket Fisherman?
27. There will be absolutely no discussion of current events, literature, art, or international news. You will, however, know all about the latest twelve year olds making CDs for Disney, that buffed nails are the latest trend, that BOGO means Buy One Get One Half Off now (not Buy One Get One Free), that cortisol is why you are fat, and women buy cars because they want cup holders (unless they buy Cadillacs).
28. 90% of all males on these stupidity-inducing channels are retarded, impulsive, horny, dim-witted adult children without a clue about being responsible, truthful, or intelligent. They will do anything for beer, boobs or potentially fatal "sports" activities. 90% of all females on these stupidity-inducing channels are passive-aggressive, frigid (or nymphomaniacal), constipated mothers or would-be mommies (pet or husband will do in a pinch) without a clue about being financially prudent or emotionally mature. They will do anything for a pair of over-priced high heels, "fat free" snacks or a new household appliance.
29. You are annoyed that the cable company advertises itself on CABLE CHANNELS. Wouldn't it be smarter to advertise on network channels? People who see most cable company adverts already have cable. Also, I hate the Comcast turtles. Stop with the constant turtle adverts.
30. Every show has fourteen cartoons and spinnies and flashies and adverts running along the bottom of the screen advertising other shows that will abuse your screen real estate the same way. It was bad enough when news channels had three tickers going at all times. Now the Kryon or whatever it is always has dancing Will Smiths or Niecy Nashes or Flava Flavs or Cartmans and sound effects and crappy Microsoft WordArt-like font abuse titles constantly moving and making noise and being distracting.
31. These channels seem to think rich, famous people are interesting enough to have their own reality shows. The rich, famous people wind up looking vapid and boring. You start muttering "GO DIE IN A FIRE!" Obviously, reality sitcoms with rich, famous, STUPID, BORING, SELF-ABSORBED people encourage homicidal thoughts. Is that good? Really?
32. The laugh track must die. Either the show is not funny, or the people who produce the show think the audience is too stupid to know how to laugh after a joke. Hint: if you are tempted to add a laugh track to your show, it sucks. Stop what you're doing immediately and GO DIE IN A FIRE.
33. You can go, go, go in a HoveRound. I've fallen, and I can't get up. Old people get abused a lot on crappy television channels. Being anything but 13 to 23 years old is bad. You might as well die. It's very Logan's Run. Children are all supposedly smarter than adults on crappy TV channels. Why don't we just let the little monsters run the world (more than they do) and support themselves financially if they are so wise? When did being rude to your mom and dad = COMEDY GOLD? Never mind, the trend has been coming for decades. It's just a very old meme by now. I'd be stunned if a child was actually portrayed as being appropriately childlike on a show on a crappy TV channel.
34. Pills for EVERYTHING, with possible side effects that are FAR worse than the ailment they propose to cure. Also, what genius named AsiPhex? I don't want to take anything that sounds like "ass effects," thanks.
35. ADD jump cuts. No scene can possibly last longer than 20 seconds. Someone might change the channel! Quick, make more jump cuts, and draw attention to them with sound effects! Look, monkey! Banana! Shiny! No, don't look away! *boom, swoosh, bells* Same banana, new angle! Still shiny! *boom, swoosh, laugh track* EXTREEEEEEME close-up of banana! Argh. It's like watching someone else play a video game, badly.
This is why I watched a whole hour of flight attendants arguing on a news channel the other day. Boring legal testimonies were actually soothing compared to the usual nonsense. I learned something. Not ONCE did a dancing Walter Cronkite prance across the screen to urge me to stick around for a potentially life-saving and very important news story ("Parents Who Let Their Children Drink Lye, News At Eleven," or "What People You Do Not Know Personally Should Be Allowed To Do With Their Own Wombs, vote in our online poll!" or "Intelligent Design: Has Ben Stein Lost His Ever-Lovin' Mind or What? Our Pundits Think You Want Us To Give You Your Opinions...NEXT!").