It started out innocently enough: A woman bought a mask of a creature called Chewbacca. I have to admit that I had no idea who Chewbacca is although her t-shirt had a Star Wars logo. (I am not up to speed on my make-believe monsters, so my bad.) She posted a video of herself on YouTube sitting inside her car, staring into her phone which was the recording device, putting on the mask and then laughing wildly each time the mask somehow made a roaring sound that she found utterly hysterical. This went on for like five minutes.
I watched the video because it was "trending" and as we can tell from the preceding paragraph, I need help in that area. So I watched it but did not laugh. Not at all, in fact I was somewhat horrified, but okay, people have different ideas about humor. But then this morning I read that the laughing lady has received more than $420,000 in goods including college scholarships for her kids because her video "went viral" and made money for the mask people. She also made more than a few appearances on TV, all those morning shows where they have to fill air time between the weather and the news with something, often some bit of meaningless fluff.
It's a crazy world and I'm not sure of how to succeed in it, but I do know you have to be willing to put yourself "out there" and that's something I just can't do. The thought of being in a video seen all over the world by total strangers makes my skin crawl. So I suppose the mask lady is to be congratulated, having brought joy to millions with her silly video, but now many people are angry and are calling her success an example of "white privilege."
The end.
No comments:
Post a Comment