I saw this picture on my news feed and began adding lengthy comments and realized it was getting a little much for a pic comment. And since I don't blog since no one will see it, I'll write it here, some of you will read it and probably agree. I'm not necessarily ranting as I am analyzing and pointing things out.
I don't care enough to hate Miley and I am a big enough person to admit she has some admirable confidence and courage for a young woman in her position, and sometimes she does or says things that I mentally applaud. I don't actually like her, but I don't hate her, but the only reason I watch her videos is to basically keep in the loop and to stay up to date with current events. Which is sad because 50 years ago we didn't report on the scandal of music videos and have to watch them just to know what's going on when we read the newspapers.
What I'm basically trying to say is, from the context used in this meme, she thinks she got all those views from haters, and that people care that much. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of haters out there, and then there is the dense percentage that actually like her and enjoy her videos. However, that is not the main reason, such as she believes. The only reason she has the highest viewed video on youtube [Wrecking Ball] is because everyone wants to know what their friends are talking about. No one likes feeling left out. No one likes being the last to know something. She's acting like she's hot shit and that's why her video is so popular. The real reason is because we want to see what all the fuss is about and to basically feed our subconscious desire to observe drama. It has little to nothing to do with her respectively.
NOT TO MENTION the amount of cataclysmic hype we have put behind her since she got her hair cut, or if you like, we can go as far back as her 18th birthday and place the event of her video of smoking Salvia being leaked at the beginning of the timeline. Her popularity and contract with Disney threw her into the spotlight, and ever rebelellious action following that only attracted more and more attention. Because think about it: did any of her views before her VMA performance reach the same status of 'Wrecking Ball'? No. 'We Can't Stop' has more views than I could possibly guess even, but as far as I've heard, it doesn't have the top views of the site where - just in case you may or may not be aware - one billion users visit the site every month alone* and roughly 100 hours of media are uploaded to Youtube every minute*. So why 'Wrecking Ball?' If we put together a digital timeline, the event preluding is her VMA performance of the aforementioned 'We Can't Stop' featuring Robin Thicke who also collaborated onstage to perform his latest single 'Blurred Lines,' both of which have caused enough controversy for the rest of the century alone. Her latest video has the highest views, countless articles are wrote about her, you can't turn the corner without hearing about her, and she's becoming such a big deal to the world simply because she's the latest trend.
So in other words, now that Miley has America's (and the rest of the world's) attention, anything she does is going to attract an immense amount of hype. If she shops at Whole Foods, if she buys a pit bull puppy, if she decides to visit the memorial of the World Trade Center and pose provocatively, everything is going to be harshly judged and written about by anyone that dares call themselves a journalist. She knows this, but not the real reason why. A few days ago I told a friend who stated she wished there were no more negativity in the world that it would be impossible and terrible things would happen to the human race within a few short decades. Humans are complex beings. We feed off of drama and negativity. I'll prove my theory: why do we never report good news? why do we gossip? why do we lie? why do we enjoy torture gore-porn movies? why do we start drama? why do we start fights? If there were nothing but good, we would all eventually get bored and possibly violent and revolt. Something about it keeps the gears in our brains lubricated. Sure, we love good too. We like hearing about kittens getting saved from trees, we love hearing about abused dogs being rescued and making a full recovery, we love good news. But with good, there's bad. With black, there's white. With on, there's off. With go, there's stop. Etc., etc., etc.
Point being, we lavish in her controversial stunts because it's our nature to do so. It's not her personally we give a shit about, it could be Gwen Stefani, Olivia Wilde, Jennifer Lawrence, anyone with a substantial amount of fame that decides to color outside of the lines a little bit. Sure there are people that dislike Miley, there are people that like her, and there are people like me that have no opinion and just don't give a damn. The problem is that she thinks it's exclusively about her and her popularity, when it's not that at all. We need something to entertain us and keep us busy, and the media chose her to be the court jester. In another 15 minutes all of this will be old news, there will be a new most viewed video on youtube, and no one will care about her haircut anymore, because someone will come and top her antics and that's when she will get slapped with reality.
But for now, it's better than Jersey Shore and Twilight at least.
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