The Golden Calf of the 21st Century

I often have trouble finding any hope for the future in our 21st-century society. I mean, any at all. As I sit on the train on the way home from work, I realize that approximately 47% of the people around me are reading some trashy piece of journalism. Mind you, I use the word journalism so very loosely; I feel like I'm turning my back on my traditional academic roots by referring to hackery such as the National Enquirer and Us Weekly as journalism, implying that it has any sort of literary merit. In any case, I look at these many sheep, frothing at the mouth over the week's "news," trying to escape the monotony of their daily lives, and have no choice but to noisily pull my weathered copy of Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment out of my bag while simultaneously clearing my throat in that way that only victims of stuffy private education can execute properly. I hate these readers of blather. I really do. Because these people are only making themselves more stupid.

I'm proud to say that I've never lowered myself to the point where I actually spent money on the bound sheets of paper that make up these pathetic excuses for "news." I believe that doing so would make me a significantly less impressive citizen of this fine country. Additionally, I have never considered setting three dollar-bills on fire, and in essence, that is what I would be doing were I to purchase the newest issue of OK!

It is my belief that our country has fallen victim to a profound spiritual depression. I know a shockingly small number of people in the 18-25 age bracket who adhere to any specific religion or even believe in any sort of higher power. While it is true that I live in New York City where most everyone is both a cynic and a skeptic, it is also true that this is a recognized phenomenon occurring at this very period in history. In my mind, these people are lost, fumbling blindly for something to which they can cling. These people have, in their search for glory, found the tabloids. When one feels that there is no god (I use this word without a capital "G" purely because everyone has a vastly different interpretation of god) watching out for him, and no community to fall back on, it can get rather lonely. We, as a culture, perceive celebrities as inherently more important than we are. Thus, celebrities have become the false gods of an entire society: the metaphorical golden calf of the 21st century. Those lucky ones who find solace in religion are all laughing: "Don't any of you remember what happened in the Old Testament? God was pretty damn pissed when he found that his people felt the need to worship a pretty statue?" Well, that's what all the silly tabloid readers are doing. Idolizing a pretty statue for lack of anything tangible or palpable. Don't believe me? The search query "Dostoyevsky" brings up 1,380,000 pages on Google. Britney Spears brings up 48,500,000. Enough said.

To me, this is appalling. Celebrities are people. I have no need to indulge in a voyeuristic delusion in which my brain experiences a picture of Justin Timberlake scratching his ass as memorable or special. On my 45-minute subway ride to work, I see enough people picking their nose while critically eyeing a photograph of Paris Hilton picking her nose. Quite frankly, this image isn't captivating or newsworthy, it's just another thing making me lose hope for the future of the human race.

I cannot blame these people though. I am experiencing an acute spiritual depression of my own. In some bizarre and twisted way, I almost wish that I could trick my brain into idolizing (in the most literal sense of the word) the celebrities plastered upon the "bibles" available at every newsstand on every corner. But I can't. Because I know that there is nothing at the end of that winding road except for the sense of overwhelming loneliness. For all of us. Taking that road in the search for something bigger leads to nothing but emptiness. Behind the façade of glittery airbrushed photos there is nothing but an ordinary person, most likely striving to find spirituality in their own existence.

I am not interested in what Paris Hilton ate for breakfast. In fact, looking at pictures of people like Paris Hilton makes me feel like I'm doing something wrong: why am I not in a magazine? Does that make me fundamentally less interesting or important than these celebrities? Reading gossip magazines brings us nothing but low self-esteem and serious self-doubt. Whether or not we read the magazines, we feel like we have done something to make our lives appear hopeless and monotonous. Why read magazines that just reinforce these feelings?

I share these views whenever anybody makes the mistake of letting me loudly express myself for any period of time. For these views most people see me as both pessimistic and defeatist. They are not wrong about this. However, I know what these people do not; that by looking for hope in the religion celebrity worship, we will end up in the same place. Whether we take the path of false hope as we read the latest gossip on Brangelina, or we sit glaring unattractively at the person sitting next to us doing the reading, we all end up in the same place: feeling terribly alone and inherently less than. So while I sit here criticizing the vapid airhead sitting next to me, though I'd never admit it, I know we're very much the same.

Ariel Akselrad is currently a creative writing student at Purchase College in New York. She has been writing since the tender age of 6, when her grandmother gave her an old journal full of crispy, yellowed blank pages. She soon became addicted to the pain and misery that accompanies the life of an artist and has been masochistically engaging ever since.

Email: Ariel Akselrad

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