The Dutchess by Fergie

In the party of society, we all pretend that wearing a weird colored wig and dressing obnoxious is somehow driving culture forward. And listen, 20 years ago--this strategy would have made sense. Taking the homeless girl off the street, dressing her up in a leotard, and having her walk around commandingly as other people dance around her, occasionally chiming in on what is supposed to be her own song--that was, at one point, avante garde. In the best way.

I know what you are thinking, reader. "But Johann, how can we rise to power if we do not collude our tastes to whomever has the best hair in the room?"

Yes, and here we have a paradox, for surely we all sense we are paying a significant cost to something greater than ourselves, while at the same time benefiting. What cost, you ask?

Well, I remember an expression my mother branded into my sixteen year old brain right after I came downstairs dressed in my usual eclectic velvet blazer for church--she had a blank gaze that pierced right through me and groaned a timeless truth while shaking her head, "The weird people are becoming normal. And the normal are becoming weird."

"But Johann! What about Nikki Minaj's message Ba-boom-ba-boom-ba-boom-ba-boom-boom bass!" you might ask.

And I understand if you have the sentiment that the mainstream has always been awful and that there's nothing we can do about it and that we should all go to the forest to listen to the truest leader of the top 40 charts, Nature.

As if Nature won't sell out as soon as a slicked back manager tells it how much money it could be making if it put all its gurgling brook videos on Vevo.

Fergaliciously doomed.

And slowly, every day, when we make more harrowing assumptions about what people have the attention for--our idea of media not offending someones attention span instead of actively engaging it, another beautiful person will think art is wearing a wig and and mumbling into a studio mic and doing whatever their Machiavellian producer says.

What can we do, reader? Pretend to like Fergie's The Dutchess parties.

And just as people like to shower the leotarded with undeserved accolades just for they don't die virgins, we will pretend that that this genius art garbage is underrated. We will wait till everyone is really drunk and demand everyone to sing along.

And we will pray for deliverance.