One final television activism post, and I swear I will administer my own lobotomy before I watch late night television or network news just because somebody else has them on again. If I lose my mind I want that to be because I personally removed it. I believed people who said “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” despite a world full of amputees and kwak-addicts. It isn’t true. Not cutting myself off totally from things that abuse me, thinking I can force myself to see their merit, only gets higher ratings and more validation for abusers, and always turns into me just being angry at them and needing to spend hours writing about them to claim closure for myself. I feel more closed than I did last time, but shutting and locking mechanisms often malfunction after 30 years.

The point of “late night” television, I thought, was to air material that was not considered in line with the rest of the schedule, taking more risks, reaching a more eclectic audience. As usual, I thought wrong. It only ever was that way because networks couldn’t produce enough routine garbage to fill all their time slots. Now it’s easier to make than ever and they can, and they have a surplus, and since their routine audience never goes to bed and sponsors pay more to reach them anyhow, having late night indistinguishable from early night and mid day suits them just fine.

My primary impetus here: James Corden’s late nighted television show was nominated for four Emmy awards! Yippitee-doo! I know that because he announced that on his show, that was being watched in my presence amidst my general duties. Just the conceited trendy “praise me for being praised” behavior I hate on the internet.

Old Stephen Colbert I accepted that from, because the point of his old show was that he was a conceited ass who demanded praise. And it functioned as a commentary on the phoniness of self-administered media awards that it was completely plausible that such a conceited ass had so many that he could use them as props. But as is often the case, the satire of ten years ago is the sincere reality of today. I must let it go and do what it will. One of Corden’s nominations was for a prime time-aired special edition of his program, which was fixated around the trendy, content-devoid “carpool karaoke” gimmick, which is literally just Corden and celebrities getting into a car at scripted intervals, having scripted banter and then singing along, not necessarily well, to annoying songs that are already popular, while driving nowhere with his hands off the steering wheel. Alright, so an hour’s time slot worth of that is what we give less obscure timeslots and awards to now. Hey look, recognizable people! Hey listen, recognizable songs! In a car! Congratulations, you’re entertained! I appreciate that his regular guest segments do not involve a desk and are not hierarchically separated, but I don’t give a humperdink about guest segments to begin with, and never much did. Having them seep into the designated “comedy” portions to disguise the lack of actual comedy is a sizable stomp in a wrong direction and nobody noticed because that’s the only direction they’ve gone in for years.

And it isn’t just the karaoke piece but that’s the only one I’m getting into, and then I’m getting out. I need not detail every media synergistic bit of promotion by Matt Damon and Seth Rogen masquerading as silly sketch. But Karaoke, that is fun if you yourself are doing it, or somebody that you know is doing it, and just plain annoying otherwise You might as well record people playing Cranium. In a car.

And then after the announcement, in lieu of properly edited content, Corden aired a preview of the next karaoke bit, which would be airing in full two days later. how bloody lazy is that? You boast of your greatness and how many people are saying you’re great, and then show something that isn’t even ready. Is this a network television show with a staff of hundreds or one doofus’ Patreon?
And the car star was Michelle Obama, who is presumed entertaining based on what? I have no clue. Being married to a celebrity president. The entire culture that allowed this program to exist and then threatens to give awards to it is corrupt. And the footage of the bit is setup to make it be a surprise who gets in the car, except it isn’t because Corden himself said who it would be before throwing to the footage, that he himself appears in, that it is going to be Michelle Obama. Like if I didn’t know that 30 seconds before it was relevant, that would be my breaking point. And then also bear in mind this exact same thing will be re-run in the same week of non-reruns, and later the actual reruns will likewise run it re.

The next day, ABC World trash celebrity hype News covered it, complete with a pre-coverage tease that already told all the story that they had before the main report on this thing that isn’t even news. If the story had been “celebrities getting paid to be on television without attempting to exhibit talent” they might have had something, but in fact all they had was just a clip of the clip of the show, which they had already showed.

This is rather a clip from Good Morning America and not World News Tonight. But that makes it even worse: the prime-time show that is supposed to be giving information that matters is airing leftovers from the show that is exclusively devoted to fluff. And somehow this clip of the clip is on the internet even though the actual clip being clipped from is itself on the internet. And now I have posted a cap of a clip of a clipped clip of hyped tripe’s trite retry. Thanksh, Obama!

It’s like a circle-jerk where instead of other participants you put your hand through an interdimensional portal that just happens to exit immediately beside it in the opposite direction. I will not show a picture of that. I once remarked that the Saturday Night Live 40 year anniversary show was the closest I had ever seen to somebody masturbating on television, and the lack of international consensus on whether the version of you on the other side of a portal is technically the same person as you leaves that distinction still in place for the time being.

ABC World News ALSO covered the United States Olympic swim team singing together, in a car, naturally. The anchor David Muir prefaced it by saying “you’ve seen carpool karaokeTM before, but not like THIS.” He is confident I have seen that before because he has shown it before, and he has teased it across a full broadcast as if it it is news before, and as if there is actually MORE non news than can fit into the dumb tease even though there isn’t. He could at least tell me where all these swimmers are GOING. I had hoped somebody would rob them once they got there but then they told me “dude that’s totally what happened.” Gee I feel kind of bad now.

Look at his stupid tool face! A prairie dog could do his job but the prairie dog probably has more pressing business (please don’t make a computer animated movie about prairie dog news anchors). I like imagining that isn’t a video screen, those are regular sized people and David Muir is a tiny gremlin living in their cupboard. That is more rational to me than the truth.

One of the songs being sung is “call me maybe,” a song that only exists to be in stupid forced “viral” videos of dorks living to homage others. It is a song about a crazy person who thinks every else’s name is “Maybe” and the singer has resigned herself to that. My first exposure to the song was when some Southern Connecticut Stale University students filmed themselves (don’t click on that I beg you) pretending to sing it and and that was on the front page of the school newspaper, another bastion of journalism with untarnished integrity. The report promoted the fact that this group of students who got together to record themselves not singing an annoying song was very popular. Even though its popularity ought to be evidence that I do not need to be told.

and it’s the exact same garbage: illogical montage of people being dorky on purpose to the tune of a song that is annoying on purpose. What is the appeal of doing that? What is the appeal of watching someone else do it? There’s even a scene of them in a car! I don’t get it! Why in a car? It is hardly an ideal space to practice your train conductor whistle moves. And once again, no hint where they are going.
Hey! The song isn’t good, and you’re not good for miming nonsense to it. I take a special amusement in literal interpretations of dumb song lyrics, but just being a goon randomly doesn’t prove anything. And I hate the non-committal nature of the lyrics. “Here is my number, please call me” is fine. Saying “call me, maybe?” has fake humility in it, like you cannot even stand behind your own statement. Call me maybe, I guess? whatever? So if it turns out you do not wish to be called, that’s MY fault? I hate you definitively!

Ah ha! And what is this? Threatened upcoming feature film Sing appears to be a movie about computer generated animals mouthing along to tacky songs… IN CARS! While I certainly would not, could not in a car, ultimately I wouldn’t watch this movie here OR there. We aren’t even pretending there is a story or original content. Some marketing firm just tossed money at a record company. What a rubbish heap culture. I have had my criticisms of the Disney company, and they keep coming, but they won’t put a movie in a theater without a story. Even if it is a complete rehash of a story they did before, or an obnoxious anti-rehash of a story they did before. SING is like something Disney puts on its tv channel. This is like something that would be on Newgrounds ten years ago.

What is most sad to me, I know people who will be all over this. Not sad for them, obviously; sad for me being in proximity continually to people who like things that make me sad. If it is brightly colored and moves, especially if it includes an animal they like, they won’t protest or question any part of it. Like a 2 year old child. Is it stupid? Is it lazy? Is it annoying? Is it suspiciously overexposed? Jolly good, the very things we’re looking for.

Hey parents! SAUSAGE PARTY! _{no kids plz} SAUSAGE PARTY! Big colorful smiling [objects]!
What, specifically, is this hideous thing? I don’t know, thankfully, but it seems to come from the same place as any other hideous thing. Lazy, easy writing paired with huge animation budgets. Although I am told that actual party animators were not well compensated. At the Fleischer and early Disney studios, some of the most visually impressive cartoons were produced by criminally underpaid animators. But being nice to look at doesn’t appear to have been among the desired outcomes here. Presumably any money went to paying the voice actors. Or hacky comedians pretending to be voice actors. I honestly don’t want to know. I don’t want to look it up. I don’t want to be any more aware than I am inadvertently. The less aware I am, the less I can hurt myself mentally trying to justify the world continuing to exist. I can’t remember ever being this consistently disgusted before, and there wasn’t even a smurf or chipmunk movie in 2016. Not yet, anyway. If I see one more shiny computer generated character with a sassy smirk…. I probably won’t do anything since I had to numb myself to it just to get through a supermarket without setting the place on fire if I accidentally saw a bag of M&Ms. And those don’t even sing in automobiles.
Pigs are one of the precious few mainstream animal species I don’t hate as cartoons yet. Why are you doing this to me. Take all the stupid rabbits, ugly lions and irritating penguins you want but leave pigs out of it.
Gurf and Sing isn’t being released until the Christmas. Unless I take action, in my future there are at least four more months of ads for it, which will use an ever expanding array of annoying clips just as unfunny as these while keeping the most annoying, least funny ones in circulation. They might as well be Geico insurance ads. Or Progressive Insurance ads. Or [State]Farmers insurance ads. The only thing they are ensuring is their order on the list of priorities once I finish building my Tower of Judgement.
It is like somebody saw Secret life of pets and angry birds and said “i dare you to make a worse, cash-innier talking animal movie than this the same year.” There are so bloody many, I don’t remember that Ice Age 5: Playin’ for Keeps came out this year also, and that was, plainly, quite awful! But not in a way its predecessors had not already been awful.

Gollyo stringbeans, Louis Seekay is the top-billed voice in the pet movie. He was my favorite comedian in the 1990s and this is what happened to him. The others in that pile, Jim Gaffigan is a shill for the companies he used to do routines about, Dave Chapelle went crazy, and Patton Oswalt I like but only so long as I can remain ignorant of his present activities. Which is the same way I cling to sanity amidst things I hate, and hardly a victory. I have to keep from considering that he was the top-billed voice in a talking animal movie in 2007. The world is running in circles, but I am the one who has to vomit.

I used to want to be a stand-up comedian. Quite apart from the fact that I’ve never accomplished anything and am actually quite a bit older than my psychological condition that is mostly unaltered from 20 years ago lets me subconsciously pretend I am, I don’t see the incentive in it, if the absolute best you can hope for is to be a voice in a lame animated movie to give it some comedy cred to use in its advertising despite the comedians not actually doing any of their own schtick in the films unless it is watered down and brainless, awkward and uncomfortable. To me, I mean. Robin Williams WAS Robin Williams in his voice roles, and terribly annoying, and therefore successful, thus paving the ment for every animated movie to have comedians do the voices, unless a pop singer is considered first. I should be glad James Corden is actually an actor first, right? Except he’s an actor pretending to be a comedian pretending to be a pop singer.

More “comedians” ghosts of my past wrath, Jimmy Fallon I actually liked at one point, when he was bringing a bizarre giddy sensibility to demi-human personalities like Osama bin Laden and NBC president Jeff Zucker, before he was being pushed as somebody who is a grand polymath spectacle in himself. Oddly enough that giddiness is exactly what makes him so unwatchable and unfunny on his own program. He thinks as long as he cracks up on camera he must be doing something funny, and he cracks up more easily when he is with celebrities because he is totally in awe of them, and is physically unable to question the validity of them. And I liked Seth Rogen when he was a totally nameless and low key presence in 40 Year Old Virgin, and I have been suffering ever since. Gee I dunno a-huihhuihhuihhuih. I have done that impression of him for several people and nobody gets it but I swear that’s how he laughs and I think it is funny when I imitate that and you know what, I’ll take it.

Despite having watched him since 1999, I didn’t much notice Stephen Colbert until 2005, but once he got noticed by people with money and went to a network the lawyers cut his marbles off. Marbles being shiny glass orbs that are and fun to look at and stupid in an amusing fashion. In fact Corden’s show is probably better, for what that is worth, but building all the promotion around the car bit is only going to drag it in the worst direction. Getting banished from the NBC Tonight Show was probably the best thing to happen to Conan O’Brien, as far as personal approval by me is concerned, which I can all agree is a very important thing. Nobody younger than him is pushing or being pushed to replace him, and he isn’t expected to beat any of his competitors, only to turn a profit for TBS, so he can do what he is good at.

Which these days apparently is being terrible at video games. With celebrities. Conan has played more video games the last six months than I have the last six years. There’s no way he’s still terrible at them. There’s also no way that’s still his real face but that is another story.

No time! I am too busy writing about being angry! Also this game is terrible and I’ll just write about that if I touch it again. It’s a much better use of time to be so bad at games that you can’t tell, and tell everyone.

In conclusion, I am not going to watch television anymore. I said that before, probably, but I wasn’t considering network news in that mix, and some of this is left-over from before the last time I said that, especially the previous two paragraphs that are absolutely irrelevant otherwise. I also still received updates from some TV writers on twitter who I liked before I realized they were never going to like me. And TV seems decreasingly to like writers so I sympathize.

This is ridiculous: I like things in the world. In a choice between relating to those I cohabitate with and not wishing for the Ebola Challenge to become a viral phenomenon, the choice is clear. It is not fun to be angry at things anymore, since they now wholly overwhelm the things I am not angry at. Since my anger is not marketable, it does not get me attention and financial backing with which to produce personal happiness from the anger, as I become inescapable and insufferable enough to make other people angry. I should be upset that some persons relinquish their free will, not at what they partake of afterward. I also wasn’t considering that going to a cinema is the exact same thing as watching television now, just more expensive and less convenient. I need to set some rules.

Aw beans.