I Don't Get It 2: Electric Boogaloo

            Sorry for the briefness of this post and for the post being late, but stuff is happening! Life updates to come. I know, I know, you’re on pins and needles.

This is a second edition of a post of mine from October. More popular fad and beliefs that utterly elude me. Let’s get right into it!

Organic Food: Starting with a big one. It’s not that I don’t get the benefits of eating healthy. But organic food isn’t healthier than “non-organic” food, for lack of a better term. An organic tomato and a regular tomato are exactly the same genetically. We as a nation no longer use toxic pesticides. Organic food, on the other hand, use “natural” pesticides like fermented urine.

            Yeah, just think about that for a minute. Fermented urine.

            Fucking ew.

            There are plenty of far more qualified people who have debunked organic farming’s completely unscientific and even dangerous methods rooted in superstition, so I won’t go into detail here, but with the evidence that organic food is utter bullshit being just a couple of clicks away, how anyone still buys into the bullshit (another favourite e.coli-ridden natural fertilizer of organic farmers) is beyond me. Wouldn’t it be better to do your research and actually make a truthfully healthy decision than to jump on some media-driven feel good bandwagon that does absolutely nothing for the environment, local farmers, or your health. And just makes you sound like a total douche canoe when you say, “I only eat organic.”

Dub Step: Here is a pre-emptive apology to quite a few of my friends, especially members of my darkling throng, where dub step is, unfortunately, a big thing. But yeah, not only do I not get why dub step is popular, but I really don’t like it. Like all bad fads, it’s crept into every little aspect of my life, even belly dance. Tribal fusion dancers are currently in love with dub step, and though the combination does lend itself to some really nice shimmy/staccato layers, the music still makes my eye twitch. I don’t understand how something that sounds like my cat pawing at a spring doorstop passes as music, but then again, I don’t understand how Ke$ha hasn’t had her tongue ripped out yet, either.

            Quick note, though, there is one song I’ve heard where I think dub step actually complements the sound. And yeah, it’s the one you’re thinking of…and no, dear God, it’s not Skrillex.

Dude, fuck you.

            Anyway, with music especially, to each their own. A great deal of the music I like sends people running to plug their ears with bible pages. I don’t get dub step, but most don’t get aggrotech or industrial either.

Tattoo/Piercing Bans in the Workplace: It both flabbergasts and infuriates me. In what way does a lip ring hinder the ability to run a cash register? In what way do tattoos mar the ability to diagnose disease or present a case? The biggest complaint I hear (almost exclusively from those of the Baby Boom generation) is that piercings are dirty and tattoos look unprofessional. Um…okay, speaking as someone with ten piercings…how the hell do people think piercings are dirty? You have to clean them. Daily. If anything, having a piercing forces you to pay more attention to hygiene in a world where most people don’t wash their hands. And tattoos are unprofessional? Years ago a woman wearing pants in the workplace was unprofessional. Times change. Get over it.

Amish Romance Novels: Dude. Guys, I am not kidding, this is a thing. A huge thing. Our Christian Fiction section at work is strewn with books featuring pretty women with bonnets on the cover with titles like Blood on her Bonnet and Fields of Corn.

            …Dude.

            I really, really don’t get it.

            I grew up not ten minutes from Ohio Amish country. I spent my teens learning to drive around buggies, and I knew quite a few Amish people and a few ex-Amish families who “went Yank”, as they call it. The Amish life is anything but romantic, anything but idealistic. Maybe the storylines feature the allure of an “English” (not Amish person) rebel disrupting the sweet simple life of a beautiful Amish virgin, or maybe they’re just filled with passages of muscular bearded men glistening with sweat as they build a barn, I don’t know, but it is just the strangest combination of themes. Amish romance. I can only surmise that it’s another “noble savage” type mentality—the view that an “enlightened” modern person views the simpler, more “primitive” life as rewarding or ideal in some way—but that’s just ethnocentricity in another form.

Teasing Gingers/Canada: I group these two together because I became aware of them both around the same time. When I was a kid, there were stereotypes about redheads, similar to stereotypes of ethnic groups like Italians and Asians. Basically, redheaded men were hot headed and redheaded women were hot. That’s it. I have no idea when words like “creepy” and “soulless” started becoming the norm, and I don’t get it. As for Canada…uh, again, when did this happen? What happened to trigger hatred of Canada, of all places? I remember when America started hating on France, because they refused to assist with Bush’s bullshit, (remember Freedom Fries? Heh) but I remember no triggering incident for any enmity toward Canada. My best friend growing up was Canadian. There is damn near no cultural difference, and the few there are are the same variances you see from city to city in the States. Oh, and my friend was also a strawberry blonde, damn near redhead. Redheaded Canadian, and awesome. I don’t get the prejudice.

Me with one of my favourite gingers, who is dressed like one
of my other favourite gingers!

The Moustache Trend:  Moustache necklaces. Moustache earrings. Moustache finger tattoos (those are actually funny the first six or so times you see them, then they get old.) Uh, what the hell? Is this our generation’s Pet Rock? Just a completely pointless random fixation?

Yeah...that's not cute.

Hipsters: An entire subculture that utterly fails at its ultimate goal: being ironic.

Chronic Complainers: This is the first time I don’t get something and yet I’m a part of it. I have a wicked negative streak in me sometimes, though in my (weak) defense, I complain using humour, so at least it’s mildly entertaining to my listening ear/victim. But yeah, I don’t get people who are excessively negative about everything; work, their home, their boyfriend/girlfriend, their family, their clothes, etc, etc, etc. “I’m trapped in Ohio/PA/enter state here.” “My job sucks.” “My girlfriend’s cheating on me again.” Move. Get another job. Dump the girlfriend. Jesus Christ. I complain about things because I’m underconfident and often lazy, but at least I make an effort to change things. My biggest complaint lately is that I haven’t gotten to experience the fun of Columbus. So I’m working on moving closer to the action. Ta da! Stop complaining and start doing something about your complaints. Or at least be funny when you’re complaining about it. He he.

            All right, done for now. This I don’t get it stuff might end up becoming a regular series on this blog, because the more I write them, the more trends I discover that just utterly elude me. I feel like a middle aged woman watching MTV.

            You know, back when MTV was relevant.

            …

            Christ, I feel old.