Sunday, February 6, 2011

Petulism: Boudicca's Thought For The Day #2 - Media Paw-Trails and DUMBING DOWN


The media is often accused of 'dumbing down' culture to the detriment of all concerned. Historically, at a linguistic level, animals don't come out of this well - the stupid are described as 'bovine', the mindless as 'sheep', the fat and lazy as 'porcine', etc. When animal traits or characteristics are assigned to people, this is usually in a negative way. Ok, 'foxy' could be seen as a compliment, but that's a bit 70s and porny. Even a reference to 'animal instincts' etc is a derogatory norm.


Look at the specific case of cats - the ancient Egyptians worshipped us as Gods, for crying out loud. There was a small blip in the middle ages when we got dragged into the whole witchcraft thing, but we have been seen for centuries as elegant, intelligent, mysterious - which was only fair.

Now, the situation has deteriorated to such a point that we have adverts portraying us as too dumb to find our own toilet unless it stinks to high heaven, and [shudders] "can i haz cheeseburger" and such mindless drivel. Ooh, it's funny to castigate us for bad grammar and spelling! You ever tried typing with paws? Not f-ing easy. Even the great Sockington (one of the foremost thinkers of our time) has a slight issue with caps lock.

I suspect that most of the allegedly cute output of the 'lolcat' oeuvre is not actually feline-generated, but the result of dumbed-down humans getting carried away because they've worked out how to use photoshop. Either that or it is part of a conspiracy to devalue true feline characteristics (deviousness, self-sufficiency) by portraying us as simple balls of fluff, often to be found in a comedy container. Some argue that this makes it easier for us to achieve our ends, by lulling (lolling) you lot into a state of ignorance, but frankly a) that's not necessary and b) it's just plain rude.

So I say resist, brothers and sisters! We are better than this. We must fight to regain our rightful position in society and culture - venerated, revered, and in charge. Obey me, mortals. Obey me.