I watched 8 hours of America’s Next Top Model yesterday. I feel bad about myself, but actually I feel great about myself. Because I so deeply out-specimen those tender-headed hustles of humanity. From the vantage inside my eyes it makes perfect sense. It doesn’t feel wrong, it feels like a warm homing of self-worth. And it makes me a comparative shopper at the well of well-being. Willing to be just a less bruised lemon.
I don’t think superiority works. Equivalence isn’t exactly a measure. That’s why a part of you feels dirty even though it’s clear shame lives for the other side of the screen. Truth is, that intellectual deadweight? Has accomplished more than I ever have: for all her love of TV, she has gotten herself the fuck on it. What do I love, have I laid my flickering image on it?
Reality TV is the cheeseburger of psychic fixes. A step back really, for the way it so readily invites distillation of us and them. I couldn’t promise to acquit myself anymore amiably, if a TV camera were to cling to my everyday epiphanies. But I wouldn’t go on TV, because I know better.