McDonald’s fast food restaurants are known for a lot of things.  What they are recognized and rewarded for above all others is the perfection of churning out predictable products that do not vary in any manner from one location to another.  Their fries in Chicago taste exactly like their fries in Bangkok.  They also contribute to obesity and high blood pressure at the same rate in either place.  

You know who in the slammer.

 People are, sadly, becoming more and more like products to be replicated and reliably sold to a public that just wants a fix and has zero concern for the effect of consuming too much of one thing.  Celebs have always been a certain way, and Hollywood culture – of course – relies on our love of beautiful train wrecks to keep the money-maker shakin’.  It does seem, however, that the chalk outlines of these wrecks are starting to look more and more like each other.  Our national diet of celebrity obsession is unlikely to change radically, but we are slouching towards an entirely undiversified diet of cookie-cutter yuck that seems especially unhealthy.  

If you’re female, it’s most helpful if you would please be under 25 years old, strung out on alcohol and drugs, and have a revolving bedroom door.  Plastic surgery or its rumor is also required, and public fights are helpful.  The male version of our pablum diet has only one necessary component.  Masquerade for a period of time as a nice person, and then rip off the disguise and laugh in our faces as you reveal the extensive list of women you have managed to juggle behind your family’s back for an uncomfortably long time.  If juggling isn’t a skill, just assault a woman you meet in a bar or hotel and call it a date. 

This is a fairly homogeneous diet of garbage.  It is also, like the french fries, apparently all but irresistible and the more we consume the more we want.  You want it, you got it say the handlers.  I need a Riviera vacation anyway.  

Let’s be clear, shall we?  None of this is an accident any more.  None of it.  As a culture we are a driving force on the demand side for an undiversified personality pathology crisis.  We really need to start eating something else, or we may all be the next — significantly less beautiful — train wrecks. 

I’m suddenly craving a raw vegetable.