I Like Things Simple

Maybe it sounds a little country, or maybe a little old-fashioned or something.  And maybe it is, even though I wouldn't consider myself either of those things.  But I like to keep things simple, and I like when things are simple.

This is the only still I could find
 from the episode I watched

My roommate and I watched "My Big Redneck Wedding" about a week ago on CMT and it was pretty hilarious.  I think anyone from the Midwest would probably find it hilarious and entertaining, like any reality tv show these days, because it was like a different country.  The couple was married amidst a trailer park littered mud hole of Alabama hicks and coolers of Bud Light.  The tuxes were sleeveless and in place of a bra the bride used some duct tape.  Marrying the two extremely happy people was a half drunk Justice of the Peace, beer in hand, covered in mud.  When the groom read his vows, everyone was overjoyed with his romanticism, even though it appeared to have been scribbled hastily on a wrinkly loose leaf piece of notebook paper.

This, is not how it should
be, but it's close

Now obviously this is the extreme of simplicity, but weddings are a perfect example of something that is heavily overdone these days.  I've been to only a few weddings myself and one that was probably the most expensive was actually not my favorite.  I did have a good time but that's not the point.  I had an excellent time at the outdoor wedding with a simple dinner and reception.  My mom has told me weddings used to be a ceremony followed by a potluck dinner at the reception.

I just realized I'm writing about weddings, and considering I'm 20 (21 in 15 hours!) and don't have a girlfriend let alone a fiancée, it makes so sense for me to even be thinking about weddings, so I'm going to move to something more relevant to me.

Birthdays.  Another hotbed of overdone, media supported ideas of how things should be.  Let me go back for just a second and say I really liked the one episode of Redneck Wedding because everyone looked so happy, and it seemed like the tendrils of the media and its assertions had not reached the apparently backwards community.  If there is a social custom the media has throughly infected though, I'm talking about birthdays.

She is probably getting an M3 or
a G-wagon or something, who
needs that at 16?

As I mentioned before, my birthday is actually tomorrow, March 6th.  Before you ask I'm just going out with my roommates, no ragers tonight.  I don't hate birthdays, but they have gotten out of hand.  When you're 8 birthdays are usually heralded with a party, pizza, cake and best of all presents.  When you're 8, this rocks.  My issue with birthdays is what happens 8 years later.  MTV's show "My Super Sweet 16" is, like most of MTV's shows, gives spoiled teenage kids an idea of what birthdays should be like.  I realize people watch the show simply to judge and I also don't mean to suggest that all teenagers are so stupid and selfish that they would purposefully exploit their parents in order to have an epic 16th birthday party.  There is however a little bit of media-perpetuated celebrity trickle-down.

Although this 'trickle-down' has certainly been happening since media existed, I think in recent years the (also media-perpetuated) appetite for creativity and originality in everything one does has created a frenzy of out-doing that has sent the meanings of the afflicted holidays themselves into a downward spiral of importance.  What I mean is, the more focused our society becomes on the extravagance of a wedding ceremony, the less we start to care about the outset of a new marriage.  As we begin to rate birthday parties on the off-the-hook-ness scale, considering the less ridiculous less worthy of our time, we not only continue to perpetuate the incorrect notion of how things should be, but we forget to celebrate the achievement of surviving another year.

I prefer things to be simple and easy, who needs a big birthday celebration?  What is it for?  To reaffirm something about a person?  I don't know.  It's just another day, I like hanging out with my friends whenever.  To me it doesn't need to be anything else.



P.S. I will be getting very drunk tonight though, to those of you who were worried.