The New Normal?

  I thought that I would discuss something that I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. I feel like I missed something sometimes. It’s almost like my way of thinking got left behind a long time ago. Maybe I never grew up, or maybe most people are just too jaded to take joy in the things that are supposed to entertain us. You’re probably wondering what I’m talking about right now, and it’s really not that complicated. I love music, movies, video games, and football more than just about anything. I’m a big fan of #AFI, and I’ve noticed some bad reviews of their new album that cite the fact that their music is emotional. Now that would be a valid opinion, but here’s the thing. AFI’s music has been emotional since the nineties. Odds are that the reviewers knew that and were just spreading hate because they had a bad day. When their music is in the emo genre, it’s a safe bet to say that it’s going to be emotional. It’s not just music that I’m noticing this in either. I went to see the movie Gravity a while back, and I had to listen to some guy comment on everything that he thought was unrealistic about the movie through the whole thing. I stayed quiet, but I wanted to say this to him. “It’s fiction, man! If you don’t think that Sandra Bullock could survive in space, well that makes two of us, but you need to realize something. You’re watching a fictional movie and not a documentary for NASA.” A lot of video game communities have started to grow toxic, too. I love a game called Final Fantasy, and in recent years, people have started to complain more and more about the new games coming out. In fact, I’ve heard complaints about how unrealistic the stories are and even that the new games are too Japanese. The fact is that the game is made in Japan and the people who make it have their home market in mind when they make it. Complaining about that is just stupid, and then there is the realism factor. IT’S A GAME!!! It’s not supposed to be realistic. I could go on about other things, but I won’t. Instead, I’ll just get to the point. I still look forward to when a new movie or album comes out like I did when I was a kid. I don’t ever think of reasons that it’s bad. I always try to find the good in the things I love, and I’m not much of a critic. I guess that I just don’t understand where our growing need to complain in this country is coming from. You can look further than entertainment to see what I’m talking about. Think about the most watched news shows. They’re not shows that give you information. They’re shows that pit two opposing people against each other in a political debate. The two of them will go on and on about how everything in this country is either a Democrat or a Republican’s fault, and everyday people eat it up. Not me, though. I feel like the new normal and the new entertainment is to complain. I can’t buy into that mindset, however. I want to be able to look forward to new things, and I don’t want to turn on my television only to see two idiots arguing with each other. Most of all, I don’t want to get caught up in the trap that I see many people falling into. They get an image in their head of how things should be, and then they hate anything that isn’t that way. I’ve seen it with books, movies, and music. Honestly, I’m tired of it. I don’t want realism or complaints in my entertainment. I have enough real things to worry about in my real life.

   When I’m entertained, I want to truly experience something that takes me to somewhere that I could never visit in real life. That, within itself, is the beauty of fiction. That’s why I love the things I do, and that’s why I write. So I just have to ask. Is this the new normal? Are we just a society full of people who complain, or are there still a lot of people out there like me who want to enjoy their movie without some guy pointing out how he thinks it’s unrealistic? I hope there are a lot of people who love that some things aren’t realistic and that they’re not perfect because this is what Gravity would have been like if it was completely realistic. Sandra Bullock’s character would have died within five minutes, and then we would have all had to go home feeling cheated by a film with no imagination or real substance.      

   All right, now that I’ve got all that out there, I’m going to go back to editing my very unrealistic, but certainly imaginative fictional books. Thanks for reading.