The Stupidity Race

Is there a race that I am unaware of? Did I miss a memo again?

Is there some sort of universal race towards seeing juuuuuust how stupid/thick/ignorant you can be?

Because recently, (and this is all down to social media) I have been inundated with just how stupid folk are. And I don't mean in a 'oh you, walking into the door frame for the umpteenth time' kinda way. I mean in a 'painting your thumb with lighter fluid and then striking a match' kinda way. Like the Darwin awards but on an everyday scale.

There appears to be two types of Stupid people.
A) Stupid people who just haven't taken the time to learn or listen. Or expand their limited horizon because they do not see a need. These people anger me.
B) Stupid people, who literally seem to have been bypassed by the educational knowledge system These baffle me. The mere fact they are able to cope with respiration startles me.

Seriously this morning I read about someone being Lack Toast Intolerant? Lack......Toast. Then the other week someone's Grandma has Die of Beaties??? And what was another one I saw, someone who couldn't believe the titanic sunk, and the film crew didn't stop filming.......to help. OR that people don't believe DON'T BELIEVE, that the sun is in fact, a star.  *facepalm*

How did this happen! We are such a bright species! Honestly the potential for our brains is utterly limitless. We developed technology to enhance ourselves. Both mentally and in everyday lives. But we have used it to dumb ourselves down. Jacked in to the social network highway to the point of normal social interaction oblivion. We don't sit and talk, we sit and poke. We don't need knowledge apparently. Or the ability to understand things. No, we are closer WALL:E than we think. Floating around on chairs staring at a screen.

Most of this has come to light as because I've been doing marketing recently.  And upon many many many many discussions about a website in development, I have been repeatedly told that people are driven through websites by pictures. PICTURES. People are now only led through a website by the pretty pictures we put on there. OH MY STARS AND GARTERS. People used to be driven through websites by the need to know more about a certain thing. I don't visit Wikipedia for the graphics. I visit it for the knowledge. And then If I want to see a picture of a microbe, or uranium THEN I go look for it. I am not 5, I don't want my knowledge absorption or entertainment to be pictographic. I am able to think and grasp concepts abstractly. Honestly it's terrifying looking out there.

More worryingly the generation after me is showing these startling trends. The people in their 20's now. They are only a decade behind me. Yet the knowledge gap in some of them is huge. I know that I am less smart in certain areas than the generation prior to me. I am rubbish at mental arithmetic, and (I feel) quite bad at English. I am reliant on technology to tell me how to spell properly, because I never really grasped it. But at least I know that the Sun is a STAR!

Okay, you can say a large portion of this stupidity factor (Sorry peeps) is a tidal wave coming in from the USA. Not everyone is stupid in the USA. There are millions of brilliant minds that are American I am sure. Its just that social media is highlighting the dumbest stars in that USA sky.  According to one chap there are only 49 states in America because the scientists found out that Pluto wasn't one of them. Then there is the person who couldn't understand why everyone was going to the cinema to see the hunger games when they had just bought the VHS box-set from Walmart. They were shocked to realise that they had bought the books. *chews through own hand in disbelief*

There has been a tell, that something quite dramatic has been going wrong for a while. The destruction of what was once known as  L A N G U A G E - Have you seen the state of the English language recently? Auto Correct is not to blame for everything. It's pretty much the route cause of all my problems....but you cannot blame it for everything.

I always ovary react???? (Believe they meant over)
I cuted my hair. (Apparently that one is the past tents use of cut) *shakes head* it's CUT AND TENSE!
Synonym = cinnamon
The fact they cannot even get their own presidents name correct. (I saw Barraco Barner this morning)
The total lack of knowledge about who Shakespeare even is.

It is getting to the point where I see a tweet, and I cannot even understand what it says. Regional Dialect? carry on. Colloquialism? FINE! But shortening anyone to n e 1, dat - is not a word and Gr8 is JUST PLAIN LAZY!!! I understand why text speak evolved. Because text messages were costly and you only wanted to send one and you had a character limit. Do you have a character limit now? (Apart from twitter) Do you? Do you know what has limitless characters?? Talking to people. In real life!! Or using the hello phone. OR and this may just been too out there for people. Putting pen to paper and writing a letter. YES FOLKS! This outdated method of communicating with your fellow humans still exists! They even have writing sets and everything. You can choose your own special pen.

Seriously people of the world. Pick up a book, or two, or three. Visit a zoo, realise that there are billions of things too see and do out there. And for the last time IT'S hypocrites not HIPPOCRATES!!!!!!!

I despair. I really do.