Rapid Fire: LeBron, Anti-Viral, & More

  Greetings, many moons have passed since my last update...what can I say, life happens.  The details don't matter nearly as much as the fact that you are, in deed, reading words that I've written with the express intent of you reading once again (You're Welcome).  I've had a few ideas for posts, but my desire to sit down and flesh them out would wane (Side note, I'd like to send a personal FUCK YOU to Bing & their "safe results" search filter.  I searched "wane" to ensure that I was spelling it correct and accidentally hit the image search to be greeted by a DVD cover of a porno. Yes, I'm aware that my first mistake was to use Bing in the first place, but I was being lazy...but enough about me, thanks for being useless, Bing).  So, I'm going to touch on a few things real quick and see how this goes.  You never know, I might revisit some of these again in more detail at some point.

  LeBron James: Heavy is the Head that Wears the Crown



Milton Un for Grantland.com



  It seems that getting the championship monkey off of his back has cleansed LeBron of most of the vitriol that came with The Decision debacle & has allowed him to get a lot more of the respect that he deserves.  However, it seems that now he's being held to a higher standard outside of the arena.  The Urban League has bashed Nike & LeBron for selling a version of his latest shoes for $315.  Their complaint is that the price is too damn high (paraphrasing) & that it will lead to more shoe robberies. 

  Is the shoe overpriced?  Yes.  Is being able to buy every shoe Nike or LeBron puts out a right? No.  While it would be a very caring move for LeBron to follow in former player's footsteps and try to cap their shoe prices to be affordable for most young ballers (Chris Webber & Stephon Marbury for example...if I'm not mistaken), he doesn't have to.  This effort should be placed in outreach and mentoring programs (Like the YMCA or Boys & Girls Club...the latter is supported heavily by LeBron) if the desired goal is to reduce violent crimes in urban communities instead of trying to get companies to reduce their prices.

  Since slavery, blacks had to emphasize community in order to survive the conditions with which we were forced to endure.  In modern times, the responsibility to reach back and help/support your community is still around, but it's practice and necessity are debatable.

  All that being said, unless LeBron is setting up tents in the hood and encouraging kids to buy his $315 shoes by any means necessary, he's not hurting anybody.

Revisiting Social Homogenization

  I've said it before & I'll say it again, Twitter is ruining society.  That may be a bit harsh, let's just say it's bringing people together in ways that gets old very quickly.  Each region has it's own voice, north east says "God", "Son", & "B" while the south uses "Scrap", "Bro", & "Folk", etc.  On a more granular level, each circle of friends has their own go to jokes, phrases, & stand-by's that makes their interactions their own.  I don't like how these unique trademarks are being traded in for the currently trending euphemism or term.  If every garden had the same plants, there would be little reason to visit other gardens. 

  This is exacerbated when the trending trend is something I think is corny. 

  Maybe I didn't add anything new to this point...oh well...cut it out.

Going Anti-Viral

  I don't care.  That's what I think to myself everytime somebody approaches me with a video/link/picture they think I need to see.  Yes, sometimes I enjoy it and am a better person for having partook in it...mostly, I don't care.  I am over viral (viral videos, pictures, trending topics...all of it!).  I don't know what it is (Maybe the social homo stuff I just talked about...social homo does not sound right but I trust your eyes have moved up 3 inches to realize I used it as an abbreviation for homogenization), but I lost my excitement to see viral stuff in about 2010.  There are only so many times I can see a baby get mauled by a dog or watch an elderly man get punched square in the face by a 13 year old girl (Yeah, shit gets real from time to time). 

  The biggest problem might be that people over-hype these videos and only in rare cases do they meet the lofty expectations.  Hyperbole's prevalence in social networking (Fucking Twitter...again) and people's desperation to get their links seen contribute to every video being captioned "OMG!!! The funniest video ever!!! I just gauged my eyes out after I watched it because nothing else will be able to compare to this in life!!!!!!!" (Shout out to Houston.  Hope your good eye is holding up)