As last year, there are nine categories with five candidates each. Unlike last year, though, we'll be splitting up the voting over four days: three questions a day (here is he vote for Day Two), and on the fourth day will be the final "Worst Event" question. This makes it a little more manageable to read through all the entries now that we are up to 45 total candidates. The categories are:
- Who Is The Most Miserable Person We Permit To Contribute To Our Society? [Personalities]
- What Is The Most Indefensibly Stupid Business Decision? [Business]
- What Is The Weirdest Nonsense We Continue To Allow Ourselves To Be Entertained By? [Entertainment]
- What Is The Most Ridiculous Government Decision Everyone Hates But No One Will Ever Do Anything Meaningful About? [Government]
- What Is The Most Embarrassing Reason To Be A Member of the Human Race? [Embarrassment]
- What Is The Most Unsportsmanlike Conduct Perpetuated By A Bunch Of People Running Around And Hitting Things With Other Things For Money? [Sports]
- What Is The Greatest Disruption From Allowing Us To Live A Comfortable Middle-Class Lifestyle? [Inconveniences]
- What Is The Worst Thing Everyone Else For Some Reason Loves But I Hate With A Passion Unparalleled? [Popular Things]
- What Is The Most Painfully Awful Event or Idea of 2012? [News Event]
Simply vote for one candidate in each category. Then, you can vote again for any one event as the "Worst Event of 2012" on day four. You can vote for the same candidate or a different one; it's up to you. Whichever one wins the overall vote wins the Worst Event, and whoever the runner-up is in that category wins that category instead. I retain a little bit of judgement and discretion on this one, however, since not all off the candidates are appropriate.
Voting will end on Thursday, December 20th. The results will be posted sometime that weekend, probably on Friday.
The Most Miserable Person We Permit To Contribute To Our Society
Donald Trump
The resident
loudmouth of New York City, Donald Trump once again proves that while the freedom to
be an asshole is inherent in our republic, but it's significantly easier for
someone with loads of cold cash. While his obnoxious personality is endearing
to some--and accusations to the contrary, he's quite the successful
businessman--his latching on to the birther movement seems wacky even by crazy rich millionaire standards.
And his last-minute election pitch to throw up a good bit of serious dough for some
unspecified dirt on Obama was a particularly embarrassing failure of his
otherwise faux-optimistic personality. Sadly, he's the sort of person who also
has too much money to simply shut up and disappear.
Kim Jong Un
After the
death of fearless leader Kim Jong Il, his son promptly took over the reins of
his father's cult of personality (and, incidentally, the nation of North Korea).
While he has engaged in some much-needed social and economic reforms for the otherwise
failed state, he's still up to the old man's tricks. Whether it's doing public
executions, sending off dissidents to political camps, or launching aggressive,
treaty-breaking rockets, his priorities appear to be keeping all outsiders away
from the atrocities visited upon the people by his father...and possibly by himself.
Chris Brown
Not much has
changed for singer Chris Brown: he still seems remarkably unrepentant about
beating the shit out of singer and (apparently, for some unknown reason, current) girlfriend
Rihanna; Rihanna still seems to be dating him; and millions of people still buy
his records and invite him to awards shows. Of course, continuing to allow
Brown near social media was probably a bad idea. When comedienne Jenny Johnson
engaged him on Twitter, he proceeded to use some quite unfortunate terms in
response, the exact sort of thing a known woman abuser shouldn't really be
saying if he actually cared about his transgressions. His management wisely shut his account down, but not before reinforcing
to everyone that he is still a horrible, horrible excuse for a human being.
Bashar Al-Assad
He's never
been the #1 Villain in the Middle East Review--top billing having gone to Osama
bin Laden, co-starring one Mr. Saddam Hussein--and he's always been more of an
inconvenient sideshow. But with all the stars in retirement (ahem), Al-Assad's
newest role in Syria as Evil Douchebag With Smarmy Mustache has made him a
breakout star. Trying to wage a civil war against civilians, stomping the
bootheel on protestors, and contemplating using chemical weapons (wonder where that came from), he's become a poster
boy for everything that is wrong in the Middle East.
Rick
Santorum
Long
residing on the punchline end of the Republican Party, for a brief time he
became precariously close to becoming less of a joke and more of a
front-runner. In his short time in the limelight (it was only a month but
seemed like about eight hundred years) he somehow managed to screw up
everything from the birth control non-issue-that-suddenly-was to upending what
normally was going to be a smooth primary campaign. In the end, his simplistic
and Neandertholic stances on issues ended up being more of an embarrassment
than any sort of reflection of the voters as a whole and he ended up becoming a
non-factor. Except for all of those poor clueless people who tried to look him
up on the internet.
The Most Indefensibly Stupid Business Decision
Apple Patent
Wars
Apple prides
itself in being a company that is perfect in everything, including its
near-flawless ability to make Chinese factory workers want to kill themselves.
So it wasn't too much of a shock when Apple and Samsung clashed in a patent war
over their phones. Patents being what they are--a nearly inscrutable resource
for lawyers and engineers to befuddle consumers and corporations--it eventually
created a situation where Apple ended up winning but looking incredibly petty
in the process, effectively defending its main innovation of being able to
power an iPhone with their owner's own smug sense of self-importance.
Chik-Fil-A
Controversy
It is
generally never a good idea for corporations to wade into the realm of public
policy. Most of the time, any vocal support for a non-core-business-related issue will
have the primary goal of enraging your customers. So it was with Chik-Fil-A.
After its owner made remarks concerning their opposition to gay marriage--not
exactly something that a fast-food chicken-based restaurant has a whole lot of
influence over--it caused a backlash and a PR nightmare. While there were
defenders for both sides (and it arguably generated more business, at least
temporarily) it was seen more like a needless distraction than any sort of
progress on the fried chicken/gay marriage dichotomy our founding fathers
envisions for our nation.
AMC/Dish
Dispute
The world of
cable and satellite television is murky and complicated. Channels and providers
routinely battle it out in a never-ending cycle of deals, compromises, and
threats, all of which basically end up making everyone else subsidize access to
ESPN. So it was with Dish Network and AMC this year. While it wasn't the only
dispute between satellite and channels, it was one of the more high-profile
ones; with critically acclaimed, highly-anticipated programs such as Mad Men and The Walking Dead gone from the airwaves, both sides risked losing
subscribers and/or their core audience. While it was eventually resolved, it
reminded everyone that unemployment, food security, and Middle East violence
isn't nearly as important as missing the season premiere of Breaking Bad.
Facebook
Goes Public
Facebook has
revolutionized modern society. That's not a bold claim; that's a verifiable
fact. Social media has transformed how we communicate, how we organize our
lives, how we find love, and even how we look for jobs. So when the biggest
force of change since the first Internet-based companies almost a decade and a half ago decides they are going to form a publicly traded company, one would expect it
to be a pretty good deal. Sadly, once the congratulations and parties were
over, no one realized exactly how this game-changing company was going to actually make any,
you know, money. It turns out: no one
really knows, including the people running the company. Oh, sure, they said it
was a lot of data mining, but many forecasters weren't sure exactly what the
potential was for that. And thus the true game changer in our
modern economy was revealed: in order to make money, the money has to be made in a secret formula and
with creepy, intangible things, like a company that knows how much
you spend on vintage scarves this year and how much time you spend on growing virtual
peaches. Good luck selling that to your
401(k) provider.
Disney Acquires
Star Wars
Intellectual
property is a fragile thing. Once out of the hands of its creator and into the
hands of a faceless profit-hungry corporation, you risk alienating fans at the
expense of monetizing a legacy. Of course, it helps when the faceless
corporation actually has a face and isn't much of a corporation; for decades,
this was the case with George Lucas's Star
Wars franchise. However, after the announcement by Lucas that he was
selling the entire IP rights to Disney--the same amoral libertines that have no
problem shoving Cinderella 4: Teatime for
Princesses with zero regard for the Brothers Grimm in your face (or, more
accurately, your child's face when watching the commercials in cartoons)--there
was a distinct fear that the era of Star Wars was over. Then everyone remembers
that it was Lucas himself that shit all over that era with Episode One: The Phantom Menace, so everyone more or less figured
that it couldn't get possibly worse.
The Weirdest Nonsense We Continue To Allow Ourselves To Be Entertained By
Gangnam
Style
America has
always been accused of being egocentric--blissfully, almost violently proud of
not knowing about anything outside of our borders. This is a rather bold claim,
not unwarranted but often exaggerated. Still, you can't deny that when we find
some ridiculous way to make ourselves feel culturally superior, we catapult it
into our national entertainment consciousness to the point of it being
immensely popular with absolutely no hint of self-awareness. It's like voting
the horse prom queen and then realizing that she doesn't look so bad after all.
Anyway, enter Korean (the good one) anti-American pop star sensation Psy and
his gimmick-laden, freakishly Asian YouTube video for "Gangnam Style,"
a catchy if off-putting song that has taken America by (as they say) storm. The
goofy video and empty-calorie lyrics (I guess?) aside, his biggest crime is encouraging
flab middle-aged men to dance that horse-riding dance at every wedding (or...prom?) from now
until it is long past its ironic sell-by date.
Honey Boo
Boo
Reality
TV--long the Schneider of television programming--is still a rockbed for the
bottom line for networks everywhere, both culturally and financial-report-wise. Still, there are times in which some of
us just want to turn out the lights with a glass of wine for some right proper
self-reflection. A unfortunate spinoff from the even more unfortunate reality
program Toddlers & Tiaras, the
star--one Miss Honey Boo Boo, Esq.--reaches down to the depths of depravity
much deeper than any of us want to go. We often watch reality television as a
reflection of ourselves, but Here Comes
Honey Boo Boo shovels down a few feet deeper and actually wants us to start
taking the back off and trying to stick a bent paper clip in mankind's reset
button. While there are glimmers of hope on this atrocity of a show--they
genuinely seem to care for each other, and there's a surprising amount of
creative responsibility displayed by the parents--there's still a certain level
of exploitation that is unmistakably present. Much like Hota Kotb on The Today Show.
Twilight
Comes to an End
The
oft-mocked Twilight Saga, a
whitewashed rekindling of the vampire mythos, reached its final sparkly
conclusion this year. After four poorly-written books and five poorly-received
movies, fans who were too lazy to read bad fiction at least got to see it
displayed in screen. Even beautiful cinematography and a futile attempt to do
something exciting besides watching pale 60-year-old teenagers brood over each
other couldn't paper over what was essentially the product of a Mormon cosplayer's
truth-or-dare fanfiction.
Lana Del Ray
The poster
girl for manufactured fame, this quote-unquote independent sensation became the
bane of the internet long before her much-criticized performance on SNL. When
her musical career failed to take off under her previous persona--Lizzie
Grant--she hired some lawyers and businessmen and PR hacks and reinvented
herself, changing her name to the exotic "Lana Del Ray" and proceeded
to crank out the exact sort of pop-culture laden music right from a marketer's
survey, fortified with a healthy dose of blatant musical cock-teasing--and
still had the brass ones to convince everyone she was a "gangster Nancy
Sinatra." While her talent is shallow and her critics very vocal, she has
still managed to stick around to completely disabuse the "indie"
label until it has no practical meaning, the only final contribution to our
culture is leaving hipsters with something to argue about over fair trade coffee
at the Amish bookstore.
Ted Nugent
Around a
decade ago, it was in vogue to tell singers and entertainers to "shut up
and sing"--and that is still, generally, good policy. When celebrities
such as the Dixie Chicks spoke out against the Iraq War, they found themselves
losing fans (and, more importantly, sales). That said, everyone has a right to
free speech so long as they're willing to accept the criticism of the fans that
pay them money. Old-school rocker Ted Nugent (aka Sweaty Teddy, aka washed-up
classic rock musician), long known for his conservative opinions, found himself
on the other side of the battle. Alas, he lost more than just money--an
ill-worded statement sloppily advocating the assassination of President Obama
found him losing tour dates and an interrogation from the Secret Service, a
group not exactly known for their subtlety. Much like Ted's lyrics.
[Voting is now closed.]
No comments:
Post a Comment