A Nation of Gimmicks

The office was buzzing, and the bandwidth on Facebook was especially taxed in our zip code, because of Bikini Boy. Every hallway greeting was punctuated with 'œDid you see him?'쳌, and there was an overdose of the already-crispy LOL abbreviation exchanged between '˜friends.' Twenty-five million people in America had stared vacuously at their television screen the night before as a young man paraded across the very-staged stage of American Idol, dressed in a bikini.

I work with him. It was one of those rare instances where you're actually acquainted with a person who is instantly - albeit briefly - thrust into the American public's consciousness. They're a flashbulb celebrity, shining brightly in front of a large audience before immediately fading back into obscurity, to be replaced by the next morsel demanded by an audience starved for distraction. They're the empty calories of today's entertainment buffet.

Two days later I turned on one of the 24-hour news channels while I prepared a quick lunch. The host breathlessly introduced the next interview subject, a man whose lust for attention had steered him to this lightning bolt of creativity: Ultimate Fighting for Jesus.

No, I'm not making it up. I think I actually took the scrambled egg skillet off the flame for the four minutes it took for the guest to grin at the camera and explain why it was perfectly acceptable to pummel another man into bloody submission in the name of the Lord.

Then I turned off the TV and went back to my eggs.

We are a nation of gimmicks, with one hard-and-fast rule: Whatever the ruse, it must be at least .5 percent more outrageous than the gimmick you saw an hour ago. And, given the 24-hours of anime-eyed viewers waiting for the next AMAZING/OUTRAGEOUS/AWESOME spectacle to slip past on the conveyor belt...well, you do the math. Just how high can the bar be raised? Or lowered, if you think about it.

This is not another article wailing about the collapse of our society, nor is it a condemnation of the state of entertainment. Instead it's a finger-snap in front of your face, an attempt to get you to blink a few times and wave away the fog. And, if you're in a position of influence in the life of a young person, it's a plea for you to take on the responsibility of explaining the difference between gimmicks and substance. YOU might know the difference, but their world has adopted a reverence for fluff, to the point where their ambitions might be skewed toward the absurd.

The minds of most young Americans have been saturated with one YouTube gimmick after another, and there's a chance that they might not comprehend what real substance even looks like. They consume one brain-twinkie after another, gorging on an endless supply of AWESOME stunts. The line between gimmicks and real life has not only been blurred, but has been trampled into invisibility, like the hash-marks on a muddy football field.

Is there harm in an endless diet of gimmickry? I don't know the answer for sure, but I have a strong feeling, just as you probably do. At the very least, a wave of mindless fluff likely acts as a smokescreen, obscuring other messages and lessons that would offer so much more in the long run.

One of the goals of my non-profit group, The Big Brain Club, is to bring awareness to the concept of the long run. My presentations at middle schools and high schools include a prodding for young people to imagine their futures. No, not their eventual careers, but rather a visualization of what type of foundation they'll need to lay down in order to build a solid - and real - life. It's one man's attempt to influence an auditorium of teenagers into recognizing the difference between short-term fluff and long-term preparation. Some get it; others are sitting there lost, wondering when I'm going to break into some silly dance routine so they can shoot a video on their phone and post it during lunch.

Listen, I don't know the man who champions brutality as the vehicle for spreading the gospel, but I'm at least acquainted with Bikini Boy (whose name is Ty, even though you didn't care when you watched him, nor do you really care now). He's a decent guy who was able to garner a few laughs before the Romans, downing their wine and wiping their greasy, mutton-stained faces on their sleeves, boisterously clamored for the next act. I wonder what he thinks he can do next, how he can out-awesome the American Idol stunt.

And for the millions of teenagers who logged on the next morning to watch the replay, I wonder what ambitions they hold. I wonder if they can make the distinction between gimmicks and substance anymore. I wonder if there are steadying forces in their lives, adults who are prepared to chuckle with them about the bikini-clad boy before snapping a finger and exposing them to the balance of true reality and substance.

Let that be you.

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