Mar 27 2009
What Octomom tells us about ourselves
Octomom. A quick Googling tells me her real name is “Nadya Denise Suleman”. Let’s think about this for a minute: why do I know her name? Seriously? Honestly, why the hell should I care about her one iota?
It seems Octomom is the latest in a long batch of people who are celebirties for no good reason. You could say they are famous for simply being famous. This woman has no talents, no special quirks, nothing worthwhile or useful or productive to offer the world. She’s having eiht kids and she has no jobs. Meanwhile, there are doctors working to save people’s lives and firefighters bravely and selflessly rushing into burning buildings to rescue those in need. This, instead, is the person we see plastered all over CNN?
I’m often reminded about Andy Warhol’s infamous qoute about everyone’s 15 seconds of fame. Trust me, in a few years, nobody will know or care about her. She is not spectacular, far from it. Rather medicore, actually, but for some reason everyone goes crazy over her.
Before you see me as yet another commenter fanning the flames, let me make it clear that thruthfully I could care less one way or another. I think it’s kinda negligible how she has a ton of kids with no plan to put food in their mouths, but to each their own. I don’t know the woman and it doesn’t personally affect me so to be honest I’m quite apathetic about the situation. Just thought I’d throw in my two cents.
This dilemna does bring up a few interesting features of our culture, though. I think this latest flash-in-the-pan escapade highlights how we’re all basically a society of rubberneckers. We are a mass traffic jam that slows down to watch the proverbial car crash, all for our sense of schandenfreude. I think, even though her irresponsibility repulses us, we are nontheless drawn to her, not only because she represents the worst in us, but she reminds us that we are a bit better. In a weird way, she’s a psychological comfort valve, giving us a scapegoat to heap scorn at and unleash our anger.
As well, she highlights our demand and bizarre obsession with individuality. Throughout the recent decades, and indeed if you go back to the foundations of this country, we’ve been bombarded with the lesson of personal responsibility. The Great depression and the current economic crisis are monumental examples of this. We now have our own myths such as the lawsuits against McDonald’s and the Darwin Awards as parables raging against what we see as incompetence and lack of self-sustainability. Octomom is yet another chance to shove the message of “have your shit together and take care of your own first” down our throats.
Look, I really don’t know this woman personally. She could be a saint, she could be a sinner. Who knows? And who are we to judge? This is an example of a world oversaturated with insatnt media. She seems like a greedy whore who can’t keep her legs shut and is using her kids as a means to get money and attenion. But so what? There’s genocide going on in africa right now. Which do you think is the more pressing issue?
