6 Appalling Pop Cultural Trends of the Last Decade:

There were some awful events in the Oughties, environmental disasters, natural disasters, terrorist acts, wars, economic crises, need I go on? Genuinely sad.

Here at The Correctness though, we thought we would take a look at some insidious pop cultural trends which we have been collectively asked to accept. If we don’t acknowledge them now, we will be force fed these horrors for the rest of our natural lives. Now is the time to recognize that we hate these things, and stop them. You may also notice a theme developing with a certain demographic who is most responsible for the problems we are having. See if you can spot who it is.

1. Calling this decade the Oughties

Far too late. Far, far too late. Needed that ten years ago. And what are these, the Teenies? Worse.

2. Emo

Who foisted this torture upon us? Why did we have to take the kinds of people we used to call “fans of The Cure” and then subtract from that equation enjoyable music, leaving a meaningless string of power chords on which to build an entire culture? What kind of suffering are teenagers familiar with? At least teenage laments in the 50’s were obviously stupid. Is there anything worse than a 15 year old who tries to tell you what pain is? Approximately 1% of teenagers know what pain is, and they likely can’t afford the haircut, and don’t want to stand out at all, or advertise their genuine misfortune. And what is that thing where you prove how different you are by being exactly the same? Ugh, I did it as a teen, it’s just sad.

3. Twilight

Vampires are a symbolic substitute for sex. This is why they are seductive and dangerous to innocent young women. Just as virtually every fairy tale is a coming of age story, vampires serve a narrative purpose too.
How the gods allowed vampires to become sensitive emo kids (EMO!) that- you know what? I haven’t read the books or watched the films. Honestly. The premise is too stupid. If, and I place heavy emphasis on the hypothetical nature of if, IF I had a girlfriend when I was 15 and she had wanted to drink my blood, she could have gone right ahead- and if she had been hesitant so that she didn’t kill me, I would have started slipping my blood into her drinks and showing up at her house bleeding. A suitable horny teen will do anything, including betray their humanity, to get some action.

4. The Return of Eighties Fashion

Oh God, I lived through it the first time, it looked stupid then, it still looks stupid now, and no legion of teenagers, gangly and retarded, will convince me that these things should come back. The neon! The tights! The rubber bracelets, the glasses, the skinny jeans, the HORROR!
Since the mid eighties we have cycled through all of the fashion of the last half decade, and some of it is fun. Most of it however, is abhorrent eye-abrasive mind rape, especially the Eighties. Why is it back? What’s left to bring back? Khaki cargo pants from ‘97? Or is it back to the fifties again. Can I wear boot cut jeans and a white t-shirt, or will I just look rockabilly?
Fashion is a snake eating its own tail. The noose grows tighter, and I need not revisit my Vuarnet sunglasses and my Cosby sweaters.

5. The Return of Eighties Music, but not the good stuff

Oh, you kids love the kitsch don’t you. Look, their was some excellent music in the Eighties, but I lived through it, and this music, categorically, was not on the radio.
New Order, not on the radio, Echo and the Bunnymen, not on the radio, Elvis Costello, not on the radio, The Cure, not on the radio, the Psychedelic Furs, The Clash, The Smiths, The Cocteau Twins, REM, essentially not on the radio.
Look, obviously these artists got some radio play, but they were drowned out by a sea of shit deeper than the Navy’s finest shit-sub could ever fathom.
REO Speedwagon? Hair Metal? What Peter Cetera did to Chicago?
Here’s one for you to remember: Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” Is not a good song. It is popular because it is hilarious. Don’t forget the irony built in to enjoying this song and start just enjoying it as is. It is not a good song. It is ridiculous. You like it because it is ridiculous. You might also like it because you never had to deal with it the first time around. I’m blaming you teens again.

6. The Triumph of Teen Culture

Get off my lawn, it is all your fault. You weren’t alive in the eighties, you don’t understand how godawful they were. Hollywood sells to you, TV markets to you, Radio is dying for you, newspapers were murdered by you, fashion weeps for you, politicians are terrified of you. You are mindless automatons, and you wear what the marketers tell you, you dance like we demand you do, you have no work ethic, you believe you are entitled, you are largely more obese than we ever were.
Teens, you know what? Keep doing what you are doing, because when it is time for my revolutionary army to rise up, I will be able to brainwash you so easily it will make psychiatrists cry.
We are sorry. We are sorry that we made you dress like tramps at 11 years old, we’re sorry we told Disney the formula for selling you music and television (subcategory: Things Disney did to music and television), we’re sorry we market products towards you, we didn’t know you were so weak and shitty. I don’t even think we can save you. Not only are you hormonal and obnoxious (this would be fine, it is natural) but now you get to tell us what movies and music we are going to get sold. I don’t even get why you get to tell us what is popular! You don’t have any money! I have all the expendable income in the world now, and they don’t make stuff for me anymore, because they are designing it for you! I don’t spend my money because I don’t want to buy anything that has been designed for a bunch of retarded hump-monkeys!

The Oughties were awful, and the worst thing about them was what became of teenagers. You poor, hapless, pimply bastards.

As many of you know, I have been working almost unceasingly on several writing projects this year. In between screenplays, and my shaky-to-start novel, I was asked to pitch something to Disney!

Some years back I co-wrote, with a good friend, a talking-dog script for Disney called “Dirty Dog”, which was, at the time, in some very preliminary consideration for production. I am always happy to do work for Disney, even if it doesn’t get picked up.

This time though, I was thrilled to death when my business partner told me Disney had asked us specifically to come up with a premise for a new Miley Cyrus project! Hannah Montana! Miley was to be the producer, but she wanted the series to have the same hip, teen feel of Dirty Dog. Apparently she had read our old script! How flattered was I, even if it was one of those showbiz lies? Answer: Totes flattered, for realsies. I really pride myself on doing the most fashionable, “now” writing possible for screenplays, and this show had everything that would engage current TV audiences.

Well, I worked to my usual standards and produced 13 episodes of a new series, perfect for her demographic called, “Miley Cyrus Presents: MIley Cyrus’ Unicorn Rainbow Rescue Team”.

How shocked was I when the whole series, after weeks of encouragement, was roundly rejected? Answer: Totes shocked, for truesies. I felt completely manipulated. Here are some samples from the letter written to me by Miley Cyrus’ production team.

“…Completely inappropriate for the target demographic”
“…Zero merchandising potential, and a larger potential for fostering mental illness, but at a bare minimum psychologically destabilizing”
“…An incalculable indemnity nightmare”

I was just shattered. I was Dasboard Confessional Emo-Stricken. I had worked so hard to pitch Disney something fresh, incisive, and cutting edge. Something to challenge the viewers, and avoid all the lowest common denominator bullshit that pre-teens see through in a second. Kids today are SMART and deserve our respect for being able to address adult topics in a forthright, mature manner.

So, my dear friends, here, for you, straight from my heart, because no one else will ever enjoy this, are some excerpts from my personal favourite, Episode 3 of Miley Cyrus Presents: MIley Cyrus’ Unicorn Rainbow Rescue Team.

MILEY CYRUS PRESENTS: MILEY CYRUS’ UNICORN RAINBOW RESCUE TEAM

Episode Three: The Longest Goodbye

SCENE 1

INT CHIEF TWINKLEBERRY’S OFFICE- DAY

CHIEF TWINKLEBERRY hangs his unicorn head over his desk. Case files form impossible towers around his desk, and dank sticks to the room like cold sweats on a junkie. His hoofed foot pushes aside a now empty COFFEE MUG emblazoned with the words “World’s Greatest Dad”.

(C/U) He glances at a photo of his murdered unicorn family, kicks the MUG against the wall where it shatters (SLO/MO) into cruel shards. He takes swig out of the dregs of a cheap whiskey bottle. Aggressively he hits the intercom on his desk.

TWINKLEBERRY:
(On intercom)
Send in Sunsparkle Unicorn. NOW!

SUNSPARKLE UNICORN enters. He pushes his AVIATOR SUNGLASSES off his face with one hoof, revealing bloodshot eyes. Sunsparkle sits heavily onto a chair across the chief.

TWINKLEBERRY:
Are you high again, you useless piece of shit?

SUNSPARKLE:
What do you care? See if me not coming baked brings your family back Chief.

TWINKLEBERRY
You leave my family out of this!

SUNSPARKLE:
What am I doing here, Twinkleberry.

TWINKLEBERRY:
You’ve got a case. and I need you together on this. You
screw this up, and i’ll be on you like a hawk… on rice…
like a… shithawk on fuckrice, you get me, Sunsparkle Unicorn?

Sunsparkle takes a long drag of his cigarette, and extinguishes it on his yellowed unicorn horn, the once ivoroid majesty losing the last of its blue sparkles. He reaches out to the closest file on the chief’s desk.

SUNSPARKLE:
This rape case- the M.O….

TWINKLEBERY:
That’s right. Grumplepuss is out of prison.

SCENE 8

INT LOCKER ROOM DAY

GLIMMERSHINE Unicorn is in the showers. He lets the water run down his pink mane, and splash onto the tile floor.

FLOWERICIA UNICORN enters. Along a line of empty shower heads, he selects the one beside Glimmershine. He brushes his unicorn horn against Glimmershine’s horn.

GLIMMERSHINE:
Not here. Not now.

FLOWERICIA:
I thought you wanted me to surprise you.

GLIMMERSHINE:
This is work- we can’t get caught, they won’t- nobody will understand.

FLOWERICIA:
We can’t stay hidden forever. This is tearing me apart.

Flowericia nuzzles Glimmershines withers. Glimmershine stamps a rear hoof in pleasure. The steam of the shower build up around them, disguising them in in an intimate fog.

GLIMMERSHINE:
Wait…wait…

FLOWERICIA:
Too late…

Suddenly the two are fucking like- uh- like fucking wild unicorns can. Their unicorn horns glow and tremble, and so do their unicorn cocks. It is a hot, steamy, pointy, blur. Cocks, horns, cocks, horns. Impassioned whinnies echo in the empty locker room. The clattering noise of their shoed hooves is like some wild Victorian cobblestone street.

In a heightened moment, both of the unicorns emit jets of rainbows from their unicorn horns and penises, filling the room with sparkling iridescent rainbow juice. It hangs in the air with the steam.

Flowericia is crying.

FLOWERICIA:
Please, let’s just tell them. I love you so much.

GLIMMERSHINE:
NO! Get the fuck away from me. I’m not, I don’t…

FLOWERICIA:
Please…They can’t…

GLIMMERSHINE:
Go. GO!

Crestfallen, Flowericia canters out of the room. Glimmershine hangs his head, and returns to the shower.

SCENE 17

EXT DESERT DAY

Beneath a long line of high-tension electrical towers, TWINKLEBERRY and SUNSPARKLE have their guns trained on an unarmed cat in an orange jumpsuit. It is GRUMPLEPUSS. Speeding away is a courier van. Sunsparkle is near tears. High above, a police helicopter circles pointlessly, unable to do audio surveillance through the electrical interference.

Grumplepuss smiles wanly, serenely. handcuffed, yet somehow in charge. He stands in front of a plain, rectangular box- large enough for-

GRUMPLEPUSS:
She begged for her life, Sunsparkle.

SUNSPARKLE:
What’s in the box, Grumplepuss?

GRUMPLEPUSS:
In the end, they all, beg.

SUNSPARKLE:
(raises his gun again, cracking)
WHAT’S IN THE BOX?

TWINKLEBERRY
Don’t do this, Sunsparkle, this is what he wants!

GRUMPLEPUSS:
Become wrath, Sunsparkle. Become wrath.

SUNSPARKLE:
AW, WHAT’S IN THE BOX? WHAT’S IN THE BOX!

Sunsparkle rushes over to the box, kicking the lid open. Inside, a carefully combed blue mane, an ivory horn with a pearlescent caste. Is it her? His wife? Sunsparkle screams, and fires his gun, a direct hit on Grumplepuss. He fires again. And again. And again.

TWINKLEBERRY:
No! Sunsparkle- no! It’s… it’s… it’s what he wanted. Oh God. It’s what he wanted all along.

Sunsparkle turns the gun on himself. He fires.

SCENE 18

INT RAINBOW RESCUE TEAM HQ CHAPEL – DAY

A priest unicorn is reading the last rites for SUNSPARKLE., his body stilled and preserved. Several overweight pixies flutter and struggle to carry incense censer. They sully an otherwise beautiful moment.

CHIEF TWINKLEBERRY is evidently drunk, and barely hanging on to the last threadbare edges of his decorum. Scattered about, the rest of the Unicorn Rainbow Rescue Team are in various states of despair.

In the last row of pews, GLIMMERSHINE slips in beside FLOWERICIA. Flowericia turns away as he arrives. Pleadingly, Glimmershine slips his hoof on top of Flowericia’s.

Flowericia looks down. In his hoof, he finds Glimmershine has handed him an engagement ring. Something everyone will see on the tip of his horn. Flowericia looks up to meet his eyes.

In silence, hand in hand, the two watch the rest of the funeral. Both are crying.

FIN