7 Reasons Why Society Praises Idiots

We can’t help but love fast food.

Thousands and thousands of hours have been put into food science studies and the result is always the same; fast food in general is not healthy. But you’re going to eat it anyway, because the feeling of inhaling two McDoubles like a Dyson vacuum is satisfying as fuck. Fast food is not supposed to be in your body but the taste is too rewarding to pass up. Kids all across the country saw Morgan Spurlock almost kill himself eating McDonalds for 30 days in “Super Size Me” but no, we’re all okay with rushing down to the nearest Mickey D’s because you will be DAMNED if you don’t get all of the Monopoly game pieces this time around. You work really hard, you don’t have time to cook. It makes perfect sense that all your meals should be fast right? “Enjoy, you piece of shit.” says the Grim Reaper, patting you on the head as you shamefully suck down a Big Mac in a Target parking lot so your wife doesn’t find out.

We get way too much pleasure from social media.

Do I feel a tingle in my loins when one of my tweets gets a lot of favorites? Uh, does Casey Anthony sweat in a daycare? Make it rain notifications on me, bitch. I cannot truly fathom why this gives me so much pleasure. A recent study came out that said people who use Twitter most often tend to be the most narcissistic. Gee, dozens of people I’ve never met are showing approval for stupid thoughts I have from time to time. I wonder why in the world that would make me feel like I could shoot lightning bolts from my dick. Still, I have I can’t imagine how much more productive I would be sometimes if I was totally focused on what I needed to do instead of thinking of a tweet that’ll make somebody giggle in the back of their Anthropology class. There is something wrong about falling down the stairs and immediately thinking, “I bet if I tweeted this all my followers would love to see me in pain.” And they do. I should probably read more books.

We are okay with apathy.

Most of my experiences in malls have resulted in bursting a blood vessel in my eye trying not to Sebastian Janikowski a screaming kid. Let’s all just look away and ignore the fact that there is a tiny human testing out everyone’s eardrums in the immediate vicinity. Lady, your child is yelling like it’s about to shit a cactus and you’re too busy looking at perfumes that you hope will make you attractive to your husband again. But you can’t do anything but let them bask in their apathy. The “If I Don’t Do Anything About It, It’ll Go Away” attitude should become a thing of the past. There are some people out there not fit to be parents, but we would rather pat them on the back for venturing out into the world of parenthood than consider that MAYBE they aren’t going to come out alive.

We don’t encourage students to challenge themselves enough.

If I had a dollar for every time someone told me they were dropping a college class because it was “too hard,” well…you know where I’m going with this. I’d have a lot of fucking money. Reasoning always includes the classic “I didn’t know it was going to be that much work.” or even “The professor sucked.” What are you going to do when you hate your boss one day? You can’t just be an STD and come and go as you please, passing yourself around. My father would write me out of his will if I ever dropped a class because it was difficult. Even though my current studies are heavily math and science (derrrrr I’m smarts), I don’t believe that I (as well as most students) were properly encouraged to pursue “difficult” subjects at an early age. They just let the “gifted” students go for them and everyone else just sit around and a stare at a map with a thumb up their ass. I know too many kids these days who can barely tie their own shoes but have near perfect GPAs. No man who is going to provide for a family should ever look at a math problem and flash back to the first time he saw a vagina not knowing what to do with it.

We don’t accept responsibility for anything.

Justin Bieber. The name rings far and wide. With almost 50 million followers on Twitter, his fan base admires and defends the 19-year-old singer with a violent, unwavering fervor. He could have been arrested for killing his grandmother with a bottle of maple syrup and a corkscrew and his fans would immediately look for anybody other than the singer to be at fault. The most popular defense of Biebs was to call him “troubled.” Whoa there chief, back up. A 19-year-old kid with ungodly amounts of money does a series of completely stupid things in public without any regard for the safety of himself and others and he is TROUBLED? No. The psychopath who lived in a basement only communicating with his mother via email and who walked into Sandy Hook Elementary School with a gun is troubled. Bieber is an idiot and there are people out there making it okay for another famous kid to be a jackass by making excuses for him.

We look up to the wrong people.

The Kardashian family? Are you fucking kidding me? I get physically ill whenever I see one of them come across my television screen. Bruce Jenner looks like he’s made of silly putty, I’m pretty sure Kendall and Kylie are still jailbait, the mom (don’t care about her name) is an idiot, and I recently submitted some formal paperwork to try and get Animal Planet to consider Khloe Kardashian as the first actual proof of the existence of Bigfoot. And then there is Kim. Thousands of young girls see Kim Kardashian and believe that she is the type of woman they should aspire to be one day. They want to be dumber than a sack of hammers and famous for bumping uglies with Brandy’s little brother on camera. Other than professional swagger hound Scott Disick, I can’t understand why these people get to parade around in front of our youth and warp their minds. The first time I catch my future kids watching garbage television like this, they better buckle the fuck up because it’s going to be public access television for a month.

We’re too nice sometimes.

As a long time youth lacrosse coach, I have seen pros and cons of youth sports. On one hand, they are great for encouraging exercise and good health. On the other hand, it helps parents understand that some kids are just born to play chess. Furthermore, the person who thought of the “Participation Award” in kid’s sports was definitely picked last in kickball. I remember in church league basketball we wore t-shirt jerseys and after each game we would each get a different colored star from the coach for our moms to iron on our jerseys. At six years old I had the coordination of a three-legged dog trying to bury a bone on an icy lake, but you can bet your ass I had a sleeve full of Most Effort stars. Nobody was going to out work ya boy. Was I good? No. I absolutely blew at basketball, but they were rewarding me for running around in my Asics handing out fouls. I fucking ruled at that. Maybe if I wasn’t positively reinforced for sucking I would’ve figured out that I was better at other things. Thanks a lot, coach. Asshole.

Could we all do better? Maybe. I don’t know. I still lock my keys in my apartment almost daily. I’m just an idiot with a computer and Internet access.

Jake Alexander cried during Remember the Titans and puts mustard on most things. You can follow him on Twitter — @callmeshitto