Hello, dear readers! Are you ready to go down a really weird rabbit hole for a moment…? Good, because that’s where we’re going today…

This morning, I happened to come across this gem of a video on YouTube. If you’d like to watch it first, you can do so here.

I assume that, if you’re here, you’re a critical thinker, are open to ideas, can discuss ideas without offense, don’t blindly follow the masses and march to your own drummer. If that’s not you… well, you may want to skip this post. This may go to places that will outrage the easily offended and I really don’t want to deal with that headache. But if you’re a free thinker, buckle up because this could possibly become a very bumpy ride down a really weird road… Are you ready to travel with me? Okay, here we go…

Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed this pattern lately…? It’s as if the entire world has turned into Forrest Gump, “stupid is as stupid does”, and they’re putting it all out there on the internet. It’s as if it was some huge, elaborate plan to make everyone on the planet a stupid sheeple like themselves by means of bullying. Critical thinking…? That’s just not allowed. You’re expected to think, act and believe the same things. Everyone… No exceptions…

Critical thinking, the ability to use your brain to form your own thoughts and beliefs (and not belittle those of others) is becoming a thing of the past. And we have the internet, and television to a lesser extent, to blame for that…

Consider this… How much time do you spend mindlessly scrolling through your feed on a social media platform? It doesn’t matter which one, really; it’s the same thing no matter which one you’re on. If people can express their thoughts and opinions, you’ll find those who do so, very loudly and forcefully, trying to squelch people thinking for themselves. How often do you have an original thought or opinion that’s all your own…? Better yet, when was the last time you weren’t afraid of backlash for sharing said original thought with someone else…? Is your answer, “It was so long ago that I don’t remember”? If so, you’re not alone. This is what social media is designed to do.

Originality and free thinking are a thing of the past, thanks mostly to social media. It’s easier to adopt someone else’s ideas and viewpoints as your own as opposed to sitting back, giving a topic some careful consideration and forming your own opinion. We’ve gotten lazy in this age of digital everything and social media. We’ve also gotten quite savage when protecting those adopted ideals, so much so that we’re ready to wage war to protect them. And, in that process, we’re preyed upon… By who you ask? Pretty much anyone that stands to benefit from you not having your own opinion.

It’s all around you if you just wake up and take a good look… But I warn you; if you’ve been asleep for a long time, waking up might be one helluva shock to you. Staying asleep is a nice coping mechanism, after all. It’s comfortable, like an old, worn sweater. You can snuggle up in it, all safe and warm, and be perfectly content without taking in what’s going on around you. But that’s not why we’re here…

Did you ever see the movie They Live with Rowdy Roddy Piper? There are aliens walking among us, controlling the media, hiding subliminal messages we can’t see… unless we have a pair of cheap sunglasses made to help us see… Newspapers, magazines, billboards, even newscasts on television… They all have these subliminal messages, telling us things like “obey”, “sleep”, “consume”, even “procreate”.

Now I’m not saying there are aliens actually doing this or that you need to brandish a weapon to “chew bubble gum and kick ass” (and be all out of bubblegum, haha). But, much like the movie, there are people who use those loud, strongly expressed opinions to their advantage. If it can benefit their company, their cause, their agenda, they’ll use an opinion, exploit it and use it against the population in a positive light to turn us all into mindless sheeple. Most people don’t even notice this is what’s going on. We see what we want…

Now I know what you’re thinking… “You’re full of shit, Jackie! You didn’t plead your case, gave us no evidence!” Geez, hold the fuck on, will ya? I’m getting to that…

I know I’m old, but… For anyone who has ever listened to the radio back in the 70s… Have you noticed a major change? Back then, stations had this huge library of songs and they played a mix of everything. Today, even if you turn on the classic rock stations, you’d swear they only have about a dozen or so songs in their library because you hear the same song over and over… Some are so bad that you can set your watch by what song is playing. And a lot of them are the shittiest songs ever made. Why…? Well I’ll tell you… It’s because the music executives decide what songs they want out there and get the stations to play the fuck out of them. It’s the premise of, “This is what your friends like and are listening to… You should like and listen to it, too!” And television is no better… “These are shows your friends all like and watch; you should, too!” It doesn’t matter that the content isn’t funny or is stupid and makes no sense… They sell these things like the second coming of fucking Jesus. Someone wants you to like specific things because it gets out the message they wish to convey, to be able to control you by means of the media you’re taking in. The same thing happened with those Facebook fact checker bots. They took out what someone didn’t want you knowing…

I know, that sounds crazy, doesn’t it? But is it…?

Take music, for example. From the time I was born, I listened to everything… My iTunes library has so much different music that, according to my music player, I can literally play music for 12 days without listening to the same song twice. Not on Apple Music, mind you… These are songs I purchased, converted from cassettes and vinyl, ripped from my CDs… No one has any clue as to exactly how vast my music collection is. Even my iTunes library, it’s missing some tunes I want that I haven’t purchased yet. They don’t even have some of the songs I want… How many people today can say they have 12 days worth of music?! Unless you’re old like me, probably not a whole helluva lot of you… It’s because you listen to what you hear on media, what they want you to hear, whatever conforms to what’s expected of society at that time so they can all be sheeple.

And what about books…? Does anyone really even read physical books anymore (besides my old ass)? And what are they reading…? Well, most of them are reading what’s on some list or what Oprah recommends. But whatever happened to reading books that just sound interesting? Or some classic literature? Have we fallen so far from being critical thinkers that we think “50 Shades Of Shit” is actual literature, actual good reading?! Of course we have… That’s why we have garbage like that to further rot our brains.

But that’s just the beginning of the descent into the rabbit hole…

So social media and corporate jackasses are telling us, in a not so subtle way, what it is we should like, squelching critical thinking and trying turn to the “Dark Side” called collective stupidity. But why…? Who wants this, besides the creators and sponsors who make a fuck ton of money off selling this shit to you? Well…

One such group that benefits from this is the government. I don’t want to sound like one of the crazy, paranoid fucks, but I really believe that. I have a hard time believing that all the people in this country that support the current reich– I mean administration– can still think things are looking up. Prices of pretty much everything are so high that even people who make a good wage are now struggling to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table. There are people being nabbed off the street (sometimes the wrong person is nabbed, a case of mistaken identity), a militia is beginning to form and the person at the heart of all this mess declared (supposedly) that he expected “his people” to behave like those in an enemy country, where he’s worshipped as opposed to being followed… None of these things sound good to critical thinker. But to the collectively stupid who follow what everyone else thinks…? Well…

Look, I’m not saying anyone who doesn’t share my views is wrong… Far from it! I wouldn’t be a critical thinker if I did… I’m open to sharing thoughts and ideas as long as it’s done in an open minded, civil fashion. And as long as the thoughts and ideas are yours and not just the same bullshit rhetoric a million sites on the internet give me. I’m open to discussing any ideas that are original and a person’s own. But you might be thinking that my thoughts written above aren’t mine. And I would agree with you if I didn’t know that I’d called this when the first election speech was given back before his first term. I saw all this coming a mile away… especially when I noticed social media making a huge shift. Suddenly, we were getting hit from all sides by this “in your face” approach of campaigning. People were more than ready to blindly follow someone to the ends of the earth by the loudly expressed promises made. They didn’t read between the lines and look underneath…

But you shouldn’t take anything I’ve said to heart. Well… except for the part where I encourage you to be a critical thinker. Everyone really should have a mind of their own and draw their own conclusions.

There have always been two topics of discussion that I avoid like the plague: politics and religion. People tend to be very opinionated in both and it’s not worth the argument. So if I decided to get on here and talk about a subject that I really don’t like to discuss because I know there’s at least one fucking troll out there who’s going to give me shit about my thoughts, you know I think the discussion, as a whole, is incredibly important. And it was the best example of the critical thinking versus collective stupidity aspect. Social media and other media is really swaying the populous to one side or another. No one should let anyone or anything influence them this much for any reason.

And, of course, there’s the collective stupidity to buy whatever the hot item of the moment is… if you couldn’t guess that from the last three pictures I’ve spammed you with, hahahaa!

These unsettlingly, “so ugly they’re cute” dolls are called Labubu (also known as The Monsters). Apparently, they’re the latest “hot” item people are going crazy to collect. And when I say going crazy, I mean they’ve lost their ever-loving fucking minds. To buy an authentic doll, you need to get them from one website and one website only, if you don’t happen to live near a Pop Mart store. Demand is high and people are going so insane that they’re willing to beat people up in stores to get one and they started limiting how many were sold. Through Pop Mart, you can get one of these authentic dolls for anywhere from $30 to $70 (depending on the series). If you go to eBay looking for authentic ones, it can go over $200…

Now… I liked them because they were really cute. But I had no desire to spend so much money on even one because I thought it was crazy. Most hover around $40 and that’s too much. But, when I found out a certain chain of gas station/convenience stores near me were selling them for $20… Well, you know I said, “TAKE MY FUCKING MONEY!!!” Hahahaa… It pretty much did go like that.. But, to clear things up, this little guy and his cohorts are not authentic Labubu. I don’t care that they’re not… I wanted them solely because I thought they were that ugly kind of cute. I don’t collect things because they’re popular or trendy; I collect things because I like them. They’re just so damn cute! There are seven in this series, in every color of the rainbow and the only one I need yet is the green one… Granted, the fur color isn’t always correct, same with the tooth count. And, supposedly, the fakes are put together poorly. But I’ll tell, all mine are built pretty damn good! And if you want to collect something solely because you think it’s cute or it speaks to you in some way, who gives a fuck if it’s authentic? It still looks pretty much the same, it’s still cute, it still speaks to you… It just doesn’t break the bank…

Well, dear readers, for better or worse, my tirade about critical thinking and collective stupidity is over… Again, don’t take anything I say to heart. Opinions are like assholes; everyone’s got one…

Now go, my pretties! Spread your wings and develop your critical thinking skills! As for me, I’m going to figure out what sounds good to slap on the Blackstone for dinner tonight… Bon apatite!