What’s Popular, What’s Not

by Phyllis Chesler

The comments I posted about the two raunchy, pole dancing, crotch-grabbing, half-naked celebrity performances at the Super Bowl at half-time “reached” nearly 6500 people, “engaged” 3089 people, and drew 52 comments. What I posted about Harvey Weinstein’s genitalia “reached” 878 people, “engaged” 328 people, and drew 14 comments. Only what I posted about the Oscars (disagreeing with some of the Chosen) also “reached” 835 people, “engaged” 328, but only drew 14 comments. Perhaps one of the most important articles that I linked to was about Wuhan. It was written by a friend, Marion Dreyfus, who once lived there and who described the utterly unhygienic, filthy, frightening, conditions that applied in Wuhan in the early 21st century (no potable water, all manner of fish, fowl, and beast, slaughtered in the open marketplace, etc.). This article “reached” 687 people, “engaged” 328 people, and drew only 3 comments. Far more important than pole dancing at the Super-Bowl, but apparently, of far less interest. Woe! Everything else I posted about Honor Killing Escapees, Islamist Death Threats to “Blasphemers” in France, sacred music, divine ballet, the scourge of Anti-Semitism in the UK, and Old Manhattan (to name only a few entries) drew far less interest.

People: Must I write about entertainers, celebrities, reality show stars such as Kim Kardashian—or worse yet, about electoral politics, in order to command reader attention on Facebook? If so, what have we become? A nation of sex- and star-crazed voyeurs, oblivious to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse thundering our way?

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One Response

  1. Yup!! When critical thinking went by the wayside and was substituted for populism, the majority turned (quite happily) into sheople. Nowadays the norm seems to be chozing the lowest denominator. Superficiality,self centeredness, laziness and a lack of ethical awareness have pulled the whole Western Culture down to the level of a simian society. In Judaism we call it , giving in to one’s lower nature. (the yetzer ha ra (the evil inclination)) If a whole culture descends into the lowest possible way of life, the culture will die.

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