Middlebrow Megachurch Infotainment*

qualifier: this is not intended to be some overarching criticism of TED talks, simply the aspects of it that stink. that stink has given rise to the following revulsion:

fuck TED standing ovations, fuck privileged men in suits and the scum who want to grow into them. fuck apocryphal revelations. fuck rich people chuckling at bad jokes. fuck applauding your own ignorance. each presentation a little bubble of flatulent over inflation. just coz you paid a lot of money to be there doesn't mean you have to validate it by feigning an epiphany. sit the fuck down u fucking cunt. fuck learning something in less than 18 minutes. fuck the little red dot. i don't even mind the little red dot, but fuck it anyway. fuck the never ending slew of false profundity that vapid minds will lap up like teenagers that think they're philosophers the moment they realise "this sentence is untrue" is a paradox. wow, that's fucking far out man. fuck buying into the TED cult to make yourself feel cutting edge. fuck being part of the chosen few. fuck everyone who asks, "have you seen the TED talk?", but can't explain it themselves. fuck the mystique and fuck the 90% of videos that aren't even any good. fuck inept minds jizzing into the sticky pages of wired magasine over an unsubstantiated fantasy of the future. fuck the false hope. fuck the elitism. i'll say it again, fuck TED standing ovations. fuck the sales pitch and fuck the sandals. fuck the fact that the ideas that are to be spread, like a sticky turd into a sheet of newspaper, are frequently the same shade as that of tabloid headlines. fuck. that.

"In the darkest hours of countless nights I’ve woken convinced that a solar-powered cup holder will end third world debt, but not really knowing why" - Martin Robbins, whose entertaining article on TED can be read HERE.

*title words by Benjamin Bratton from his amusing and acute TED-critique, appropriately, itself, a TED talk, that should be consumed as a TED-talk chaser and as a source of healthy scepticism.

also: http://theamericanreader.com/the-sound-of-ted-a-case-for-distaste/