Positive Cynicism – 101 columns and what I’ve learned

Aaron Davis

Aaron R. Davis

I didn’t make a thing out of it (except to Joel; I’m still waiting for my steak knives), but last week was my 100th Positive Cynicism column. It took me a little while to get here — I seem to take more weeks off than George W. Bush did — but here I am, and I thought this week I’d pause and look back at what writing this column for 100 not-remotely-consecutive weeks has taught me:

  • I don’t think it’s happened yet, but I still believe that Watchmen will be hailed as a cult classic and The Dark Knight will be forgotten by the time the next Batman reboot rolls around some time in 2015.
  • SCIFI Channel changing its name to a trademark-ready typo has not made it any more watchable.
  • The continued proliferation of 3-D has not made movies any more watchable.
  • The soundless void of the Internet actually seems more void-y today than it did in 2009.
  • As JJ Abrams’ Star Trek showed me, sometimes casting ten bucks to the wind and taking a chance on something you’re sure will suck turns out better than you expected. (Even if it pisses off hardcore Star Trek fans, which is also a good thing.)
  • Twitter is pretty pointless. I know a lot of you have learned that, also.
  • As much as the media loves to whip up a good panic, they also prefer to just let it die out by not mentioning it anymore when it doesn’t add up to anything. Responsibility in media? What year do you think this is?
  • Looking at lolicon drawings is exactly the same thing as molesting a child.
  • It’s pointless to expect rationality in a country where people will call 911 because McDonald’s is out of orange juice.
  • My hatred of Michael Bay will never die.
  • Everyone has an opinion on how the Oscar telecast should be fixed, but in the end, no one really cares because the awards don’t matter and people are going to complain anyway.
  • Even though she’s a total bitch and can’t act her way out of a room, there are people who will defend everything Katherine Heigl does. Seriously, she could murder a hobo and eat his heart, and these people would be out talking about how she’s just being persecuted for being a strong woman.
  • Hollywood and the RIAA are wasting their time trying to manage downloads and kiosks and desperately attempting to force the genie back in the bottle instead of focusing on creating new business models. And if Blockbuster Video is anything to go by, it’s really working out for them …
  • Holidays suck (except for Halloween, which is dying a slow death). We just had Easter and this weekend will be Mother’s Day. Every weekend is something! How about we have Leave Me the Fuck Alone to Watch TV and Surf the Internet Day?
  • Everyone on the Internet wants credit for everything they post, especially if they’ve ripped it off from somewhere else. How about crediting Jim Henson for creating that unlicensed Kermit the Frog shirt you designed?
  • Even when you’re clearly not a journalist, people will try to hold your opinion columns to professional journalistic standards.
  • People worried about spoilers should probably not hang around on the Internet.
  • While we don’t agree exactly when The Office jumped the shark, most of us seem to agree that it did.
  • Americans — especially those of us immersed in pop culture — don’t really have the impetus to act like adults.
  • There will always be too many overly-sentimental people to let stupid email forwards die.
  • Commercials may never make sense, but they sure are fun to rip apart.
  • Steven Spielberg and Pixar have spent entire careers making movies about the penis.
  • I am very lazy and I like garbage, because garbage is more fun than the bullshit pretending to be meaningful. Life’s short enough as it is, why not have fun with it instead of pretending that Avatar had anything to say?
  • Always temper your praise; one week I’m loving Tumblr, the next week Tumblr is turning into 4Chan. Lesson learned: there’s nothing that can’t be ruined by people and the cruelty that Internet anonymity seems to foster.
  • As much as America is facing a massive crisis in health finance and unemployment, it’s changing the scientific classification of a dinosaur that’s really worth getting angry about.
  • There are still people who get monumentally angry with you when you point out how much Boba Fett sucks.
  • People who defend Family Guy are apparently dumber, more shallow, more misogynistic and more racist than the show itself is.
  • Maury is an important show because it shows just how little Americans understand about biology. There’s your abstinence-only sex education programs at work.
  • Kids really do need to feel more pain in life.
  • People take things way too seriously.
  • The world is purposely set up to be incredibly frustrating.
  • I whine a lot.
  • No matter what points you ever think you’re making, no matter how entertaining you really think you can be, nothing will ever spark the overwhelming response that saying you don’t like Lady Gaga does. Because, clearly, this is the most important issue of the day.

Oh, I look forward to 100 more fun, pointless, frustrating, whiny, entertaining, frivolous weeks. But probably not remotely in consecutive order.

Thanks, everyone, for putting up with this!

Aaron R. Davis lives in a cave at the bottom of the ocean with his eyes shut tight and his fingers in his ears. You can contact him at samuraifrog@yahoo.com.

Comments(4)
  1. Joel Murphy April 26, 2011
  2. Penn April 26, 2011
  3. Lars April 26, 2011
  4. Jaquandor April 30, 2011

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