National Pornographic

I stopped reading The Frisky blog regularly because the posters are morons. But I occasionally check back to see if there's anything good-bad or funny. Usually, though, it's just the usual stupid-bad. For example, today there's a post about some MTV show chronicling the shenanigans of a bunch of Jersey Shore hotties. I was startled to see the post title describing it as an "Anthropological Study." I mean, WTF? Sure there's visual anthropology, but a reality show ain't it, not when the tape has been produced and edited to optimize the flow of advertising dollars and especially not when the trenchant analysis yields such astonishing conclusions as "fighting doesn't help," "it's better to be single," "have safe sex," and "don't binge drink." Jebus, really? Well thank Ceiling Cat for MTV, otherwise we'd still be a society of angry, drunken, married ho's.

The post reminded me of another thing I remember vaguely from what I think was an MTV show years ago; some clothing-industry dude was visiting a high-school kid to discuss what was in his closet, and described such market research as "ethnography."

So I wondered why so many people think anthropology is little more than people-watching, and what I think is a large part of the answer came to me pretty quickly: National Geographic Magazine. That is (or was until NG replaced the exotic Other with the environment as their preferred fetish) the beginning and end of most people's exposure to cultural anthropology, so it's unsurprising that they would think of it as exotic (in every sense) visual imagery along with a bit of commentary.

Sorry, Camus, I can't act without hope, and the older I get, the less reason I see for having any.