Amateur Entrepreneurs: The Worst Thing Ever

Back in Ye Olde Tinseltown days, most top-earning stars were stellar actors, singers and dancers, with none of the skills being a crutch to support a lack of talent.

Celebrities were, for the most part, blue-collar workers for the public, earning their fame by signing on to numerous films at once, rigorously training and studying various fields in the name of entertainment.

Fast forward 30-odd years and Flavor of Love‘s New York is famous for being a outspoken bitch slathered in pancake makeup; Paris Hilton puts out an perfume ’cause, uh, why not; Sanjaya Malakar is praised for his “great spirit” while butchering the simplest of songs; Dane Cook sells out Stadiums with arm-farts and aimless crowd whooping.

The worst of it? These hacks not only suck at their day jobs: they find it necessary to plague other fields of entertainment by becoming entrepreneurs.

Clueless, no-talent stars becoming amateur entrepreneurs are the worst thing to ever happen to mankind. Our standards for what is talent and what is entertaining seem to be getting worse every day, with media hoopla surrounding every fledgling clothesline put out by a pop star with money to burn. Admittingly, I’m guilty as charged too.

I’ll watch the most trashy of TV just to see people make an ass of themselves. And even as a “blogger” (pop-culture writer, slacker extraordinaire) I can safely say that nothing is worse than reporting on non-news (read: everything on TMZ), the bane of my own existence.

There are countless amounts of entertainers that deserve our attention…but they don’t have the ‘tude for TV, mannnnnnnnnn. Introverted geniuses get the boot while obnoxious idiots spend millions on guest bathrooms in their vacation house.

Singers, actors, fashionistas – the world is overrun by great fakers. Why should anybody care about Britney Spears’ latest songs, written by a team of songwriters, beatmakers, producers, engineers without any creative opinion from the singer outside of “yeah, that’s hot – more of that.”

Say what you will about a Donald Trump or Oprah, but they built f***ing empires out of hard work, dedication, sacrifice and – gasp! – talent in their field of expertise. I respect what they do; the same cannot be said to Kim Kardashian and her upcoming reality show, or Tila Tequila’s bi-athalon series. (Remember, I said respect – you don’t have to respect prostitutes.)

Will this epidemic ever end? Am I just a young, pissy curmudgeon with an axe to grind?

Is anybody listening out there?