"Those are titles, words you cling to as the darkness falls around you."
-Kreia, Star Wars: KOTOR II
Hey, guys. Mudrono here, and today I'll be talking about titles. No, not the titles of books. No, I'll be talking about the titles that people use to identify themselves. Republican. Democrat. Christian. Athiest. Country boy. City girl. Jedi. Sith.
If you were to ask almost any given person to describe him/herself, they would reply with at least one of these words. For example: "Well, I'm a Republican. I'm also a devout Christian and a member of the Jedi Order." Not stereotypical at all, right? Seriously, though, it's fine if you're a Republican, and great if you're a Christian, but that tells me almost nothing about you. Not all Republicans agree with Mitt Romney, and I know several people who claim to be Christians but won't go to church on Sunday because they're so hungover from Saturday night. And there are several Jedi who got married and had kids (Anakin, Revan and Bastila).
Of course, the issue of titles is not limited to a person's beliefs. I mentioned above the "country boy" and "city girl" (or "small town girl" and "city boy" for you Journey fans out there), which are two extremely common titles, along with some variations. Now, before I go any further, allow me to tell you about a website that I used to frequent called MeetMe (formerly MyYearbook), which if you look at social media like a city, would be the part of town where you lock your doors when you drive by, with Facebook being the beautiful part that has skyscrapers and Myspace being the abandoned house that everyone avoids. I used to visit MeetMe to see if I could find romance, which sounds pathetic, I know. Don't worry, I have a real girlfriend now. But most people guys people use this site hoping to score nudes from a random person that they'll never have to face in real life. Anyway, while I used this site, I was constantly frustrated by the profiles some girls would set up because, aside from putting too much out there (you know what I mean), they never really said anything about them. It was always "im such a country girl," "i love emo/scene guise <3 <3 <3," or something similar. The first example doesn't describe the person in any way; it just shows that she has such a narrow mind that she can't use more than five words to tell us about her, so she needs a category. The second isn't any better. In the second example, the person doesn't tell us what qualities she likes in a guy. The way she puts it, a guy could just claim the "emo/scene" (whatever that's supposed to mean) title and he his her perfect match. There's just no clarity in using such titles.
So, I've decided I'd save one of the best for last. As I was preparing this post today, one of the seniors in my physics class began to talk to our teacher about who is going to be the valedictorian this year. Our teacher proceeded to tell us about how when she was in school, being valedictorian almost always meant that you were going to get a free ride to college, and that now, such a thing is based more on ACT scores, so being valedictorian means almost nothing. This wasn't news to me. In fact, I haven't cared about being valedictorian of my class since my Freshman year; I'm currently a Junior. But because of this, I laugh at the girl who considers everything a competition, grade-wise: the girl to whom it means everything to be valedictorian. I laugh because, what will she do with that after we graduate? What would that be to her in ten years besides a memory that she used to be relevant in high school? "Valedictorian" is now nothing more than a title used by arrogant college Freshmen who believe that people care what they were in high school, no different than the high school football star who sits on the bench every college game, yet wears his high school letterman like he's still cool.
Wow, I did not mean for this to turn into a rant. I'd probably better go to bed. Until next time, this is Mudrono, signing off.
If you're unfamiliar with the "College Freshman" meme, I'd advise you to look it up on www.knowyourmeme.com
No comments:
Post a Comment