Defined by our Junk Mail
The modern era of conformity began, paradoxically, with the advent of the internet. Promoted as a wellspring of creativity, the internet stands instead as a dam(nation!) of conformity.
Proof? Consider an age wherein the dullest, least imaginative persons on the planet are its elite. Programmers.
Image won't load? Wrong terminator. No more 'dot coms' available? Try 'dot cc'! HTML gives way to XML. Flash and Shockwave -- 'art forms' less engaging than fingerpainting -- are highly desired job skills.
And, of course, your junk mail defines who you are. (I, apparently, am a wealthy homeowner who should be attending investment seminars, joining AARP, and driving some big-ass luxury car.)
I am not that person.
Even worse is what conformity does to you if what you are is not what you wish to be. Resistance is futile! The press to conform is a heavy, omnipresent weight.
Worst of all -- the standards to which we're expected to conform are so achingly dull and low!
We're supposed to be upset because a president got a blow job? Good for him, says I! "Oooh, you animal," rejoin conformists.
Tattoos and pierced navels flaunt authority? George Schultz -- former Secretary of State, now in his eighties -- has a tiger tattoo on his butt. And we all know what a rebel he was.
No drug reform — instead we take drug tests. Wear a black coat to school and you're expelled. Smoke cigarettes and you're a criminal. And never, ever, see what's not politically correct.
Smile, nod your head, and ask every customer if they want fries with that. "Try our new Baja Chalupa?" "We value every customer." "We respect your privacy." Except, of course, when reselling personal information about you to any ass on the planet with a buck in his or her lugubrious hand.
But as always, there are those for whom the laws of conformity don't apply. Can you afford a team of lawyers? Then do as you wish! Kill your ex-wife. Impeach a president. Toss out ballots. Protect your senior staff's right to grope. Plunder the planet. Manage the news. Hell, what news? It's all the latest on some celebrity's boob job, written by boobs, for boobs.
Criminy, I'm sounding like Dennis Miller. Think I can land a color slot on ESPN's Sunday Night Game?
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