The Zong

I know it’s been awhile, and I apologize to all three of you for my absence, but I’ve been busy trying to figure out where the fuck I’m going to get my next paycheck. Also, I’m upgrading The Zong from the ground up. Look for some changes next week.

In case you don’t watch CNN, CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox, UPN, or Entertainment Tonight, here’s a clip that has been blowing up on all those networks and on the internets:

The first time I saw this was on CNN, A network devoted to bringing us all the hurricanes and celebrity gaffes that are fit to print. Or air. The two ladies who were reporting on this incredibly important story had a really good laugh and laid a couple of zingers on the girl, one 18-year old Lauren Caitlin Upton, presumably while people were still dying in Iraq, the economy is faltering, and Michael Vick was discovering Jesus.

I wanted to laugh, I really did. It’s true that this clip is a motherfucking train wreck, and the clip has gone viral in the grandest way possible: it’s been shown on literally every major NEWS network available to the masses. Still, instead of laughing, I got a real bee in my bonnet about the whole thing, and the more news pundits I hear discussing this kid’s inability to speak while on national television, the more it strikes me as fucking heinous that anyone having anything to do with the media nowadays has the stones to make any commentary on how stupid our kids sound.

Put aside the fact that Lauren is barely an adult and it’s pretty obvious that most people love to see an attractive young person appear stupid because they’re jealous that they’re unattractive and useless. Also put aside the fact that the national response to her rambling, tortuous answer is pretty mean-spirited. Let’s just wait one goddamned minute here: have you watched even a single hour of CNN lately? If you haven’t, then maybe you should check it out and tell me why you think it is that our 18-year-old beauty queens turn into brain stems with nice tits when they’re asked about the state of the country and the world. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that most of the news items they and the other media outlets like them spend more time covering the parade of celebrity and entertainment bullshit than they do stories of actual import.

That these television stations have jumped on the bandwagon and continue, even in the last few days, to ridicule this girl for her failure to grasp the simplest concepts when they themselves make everyone who watches them stupider goes far beyond being regrettable–it verges on disgusting. It seems to me that it’s just one more piece of the puzzle depicting our crumbling civilization; rather than actually taking action to make ourselves and our citizens better, we kick back and laugh at some kid who can barely talk on television so that it makes our own failures seem less important. Is it any wonder that we elected a president who speaks about as well as she does?

- M.G.