Category — entertainment

Anyone who has chatted with me on MSN very quickly learns to read Renee-ese. I think well enough, my thoughts are generally coherent and phrased well (if a little archaically – I blame Jane Austen). When those thoughts are translated to MSN, they’re a mess. Typos galore, no sense of grammar and I have even spelt my own name wrong on several occasions.

My friend Amanda on the other hand is some sort of genius copywriter or grammar guru – her MSN messages are nearly 100% error free and entirely readable.

So, Amanda and I were chatting online one day when she noticed a typo – I had written “It was very entertainting.”

Her immediate response was that a typo that good needed a definition. I have provided one with an illustration:

Now that’s entertaintment!

(And thanks to Amanda and her eye for amusing, erroneous detail!)

Did you ever notice that some of those online Scrabble rip-off games seem to end up resembling a game of Balderdash?

Oh, and “Zqajekx” is the Aztec word for “big, dirty cheater”.

You know who you are.

I just finished reading a great post on Pannonica’s site called A World Without Celebrities? and I had a few things still to say (I posted in the comments – but I can’t write a five-hundred word reply in there; it’d be rude).

Pannonica questions whether we, as a society, are capable of going without celebrities and all the attendant coverage and media madness that surrounds them.

Ultimately, she believes the answer is no – and I agree.

I understand why we’re obsessed: they’re beautiful, rich, they get to hang out with other beautiful and rich people. They wear designer clothes, drive expensive cars, live in palatial mansions and receive favours and gifts from people simply by virtue of being in the public eye.

I think we figure it like this: Some celebrities start out just like us – living a normal life, doing normal stuff, wearing clothes from Walmart or Target and then Something Magical happens and they are suddenly living like gods – the world at their feet, everyone wanting to know them, see them, and if at all possible, to BE them. They have everything.

We want some of the Magic too – we want to know how to get there and failing that, watching them do stupid things like get arrested for drunk driving, shaving their heads in a fit of madness and depression, or seeing a photo of them looking frumpy, tired and badly dressed is fair compensation. If we can’t have what they have, we want to see them lose it. Watching famous people mess up or look bad makes us feel better about ourselves. It makes them more human and brings them back down to our level.

What if we simply stopped being interested? What if, as Pan envisioned, we turned on the news and saw coverage of actual news instead of the latest shenanigans on Big Brother or American Idol?

What if we went one step further and deep-sixed our cable TV and picked up a book, or decided to spend more time with the kids instead of the idiot box? What if, at the grocery store we didn’t buy entertainment magazines because we simply didn’t care all that much about Brad and Angelina’s new babies? What if we stopped squeeing over their love lives and screw-ups?

What happens if we stop watching – and thus, supporting -  crap like Big Brother, Blind Date, American Idol, America’s Top Model and all the other tripe that passes as “quality programming”?

It won’t happen of course. It’s far easier to be entertained than to entertain yourself. Simpler to veg out in front of YouTube or the TV and just let the voices and pretty colours wash over you.

Joe and I got rid of our cable over a year ago and it was weird at first. We had so much more time in the evenings. I spend more of it reading now, writing, playing video games and going out with friends, talking to Joe and generally being engaged with the world. We do buy a couple of shows on DVD (House M.D. and Heroes) but if I didn’t get to watch them anymore, I’d be OK with it.

After all, no one on their death-bed says, “I wish I’d watched more TV when I had the chance.” or “Please, God, just one more YouTube video of dancing hamsters and I’ll come quietly.”

A world without celebrities? I want that world, but I think I’m in the minority.