Overexposure: Three Things That Have Grown Tiresome

Okay, so I would consider myself to be a pretty positive person and I generally think that the content of this blog reflects this worldview.  That said, I do go on petty rants once in awhile (as evidenced by posts such as this one and that one).  So as you could probably guess I have decided to eschew rationality and fairness  tonight in favor of a good old-fashioned Internet bitch fest in which I complain about things that I am really in no way whatsoever qualified to have an opinion about.  And the objects of my ire tonight are any pop cultural objects which I personally deem to be overexposed.  This is the stuff that might have had some value at one point, but has simply sat in the limelight for so long that it has lost its novelty and its ability to thrill.  There's a lot of stuff out there that could fall into this category, but I've narrowed it down to three things (some of which I used to love, some that I've always had a distaste for).  Join me in counting down the tedium of these expired artifacts:

1.  Zombie Related Humor: There was a point in time when I devoured anything zombie related.  Hell, this blog's very name stems from my zombie-philia.  So you can know for certain that when I say that I'm sick of zombie related media and merch that zombie stuff has truly oversaturated the marketplace.  And is there anything out there that has become more stale and uninspired than the zombie comedy?  Whether it's in film, print, or on the vast plane of crap known as the Internet, the zombie comedy has definitely run its course.  I think that the year 2009 was the last time that I had any interest in consuming any new "comedic" zombie stories. For me it was Pride and Prejudice and Zombies that was the last straw.  I was so totally behind that book just from the title alone when I heard about it on a zombie related podcast that I was listening to at the time (yes, I used to listen to 2+ hours of zombie talk a week, that's how into the genre I used to be), but when I read it I was disappointed.  The book read like a sloppily written cash grab (which is what it was) and the disappointment I experienced while reading it turned me into the humorless and cynical husk of a human being that I am today.  Okay so I exaggerate, but my point is still clear.  There have been so many shitty contemporary zombie comedies attempting to capitalize on the current interest in zombie fiction that I have become burned by the subgenre.  Sure I'll treasure Dead Alive to my dying day, but right now I'm ready to move on.  It's time for the genre to go into hibernation, only to be dug up again when enough distance has been placed between the public at large and crimes like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

2.  The Hunger Games: Alright.  Where do I even start on this one?  I am fully aware that as someone who has never read and/or seen The Hunger Games that I really have no place to be talking about it.  And I'd totally be cool with just leaving well enough alone and letting the tweens have their fun.  And yet the media is so oversaturated with Hunger Games crap right now that I have been drawn into talking about it against my will.  I think what bothers me the most about all the Hunger Games hype is that it's really just another symptom of America's obsession with the young.  Seriously, how else can you explain the fact that the hit media property at the moment in America is something that was written for 12-year olds (and whose central characters are primarily children or teenagers)?  It's cool if you're a kid who is into this stuff, but it kind freaks me out to watch adults obsess over things like this.  The Hunger Games film is 2 hours and 22 minutes.  In that time you could watch Citizen Kane and still have over twenty minutes to spare.  Actually there's a whole lot that you could do with those 2+ hours that would be a more fruitful use of your time as a full-grown human being.  And I hate to be the stereotypical nerd, but Battle Royale totally did this first and it's inevitably better than this Primrose Everdeen shit.  Now again I don't want to seem overly venomous against the property in and of itself (I've never read or watched it after all), I just want the media at large to stop bombarding the marketplace with Hunger Games hype.

3.  "Nerd" culture/pride: This one might seem weird.  First off, it's the most abstract of my three grievances.  Second off, I myself am rather geeky in the capacity that (a) I adore Star Wars and (b) I'm actually dorky enough to blog regularly about books and movies and the like.  But this is one (like zom-coms) that I actually like in small doses, but has grown tiresome and overexposed.  Since it's gotten to the point that people like Megan Fox are declaring themselves to be nerds, I think we can safely say that the term has become distorted and virtually devoid of meaning.  Therefore I have a problem with people calling themselves "nerds" simply because I find it to be an empty and incredibly unproductive term.  After all we live in a media saturated environment so it makes sense that most people would be enthralled by storytelling of some kind.  And as I stated in my last post, the Internet has made it incredibly easy for people with niche interests to follow their passions.  So basically its easier than ever to be obsessively interested in the minutia of a media property or segment of culture, so of course we're all nerds nowadays!  Therefore it is no longer really informative to describe yourself as a nerd.  Let's all move on.

Whew.  Glad I got all that off my chest.  Next time around will surely be a post detailing my favorite things, such as snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes and Japanese films that involve auto-cannibalism.