People are afraid of being without their phones

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Category: Your Opinion is Wrong

Published on Wednesday, 22 February 2012 15:19

Written by Tom Z

According to the Los Angeles Times, “nomophobia,” or the fear of being without your cell phone, is on the rise.

Using the online polling service OnePull, SecurEnvoy found that 66% of the 1,000 people surveyed in the United Kingdom say they fear losing or being without their phone.

Just four years ago a similar survey found that only 53% of people suffered from nomophobia (no-mobile-phobia).

People 18-24 tend to be the most nomophobic (77%), followed by people aged 25-34 (68%). The third most nomophobic group is 55 and older.

According to the website allaboutcounseling.com, nomophobes can be treated by exposure therapy. First a person can start imagining what it would be like to be without a phone. And then maybe spend small amounts of time away from the phone.

First off, I’d like to state for the record that the term “nomophobia” is lame and I really hope it doesn’t catch on.  Instead we should refer to it as a branch of agoraphobia, because that’s what it is.  I’ll never forget a few years back, my old roommate had this girlfriend, and a group of friends were questioning me about how they met.  They made at least a dozen guesses – Match.com, eHarmony, Facebook, MySpace, JDate, etc. – before eventually giving up.  My response was, “they met the old-fashioned way.”  Then I had to explain to them that the “old-fashioned way” meant at a bar and not in an AIM chat room.  It’s pretty ironic that in our ever-growing search for interpersonal connectivity, a face-to-face conversation has become the 27^th most utilized option.  I don’t mean ironic in an Alanis Morrisette sort of way, like rain on your wedding day or finding 10,000 knives when all you need is a spork.  I mean literally ironic.  The point is, if we can go from “Do you come here often?” to poking people on Facebook in just a few years, I think it’s pretty safe to say that our kids’ generation is fucked.  Or not fucked, if you want to be literal about it.

Surprise, Kate Upton is good-looking

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Category: Your Opinion is Wrong

Published on Tuesday, 21 February 2012 15:40

Written by Tom Z

There’s an interesting article in the New York Times discussing supermodel Kate Upton’s rise to fame.  Upton was dismissed by the modeling world, but still managed to become Sports Illustrated’s 2012 Swimsuit Issue cover model after cultivating a massive online following.  With a Twitter following of 170,000 and millions of YouTube views, Upton has utilized the Internet and social media as well as any model to date.

Why was someone who so clearly appeals to the masses unable to find a place in the modeling world?  From the Times:

“We would never use” Ms. Upton for a Victoria’s Secret show, Ms. Neophitou said by telephone last week from London. And, while Ms. Upton has, in fact, modeled on occasion for the company’s catalog, her look, said Ms. Neophitou, is “too obvious” to be featured in what has become the most widely viewed runway show in the world.

“She’s like a Page 3 girl,” Ms. Neophitou said, referring to the scantily clad voluptuous women featured in The Sun, a London tabloid. “She’s like a footballer’s wife, with the too-blond hair and that kind of face that anyone with enough money can go out and buy.”

In case that blurb doesn’t make it clear, let me explain the problem.  We have an industry that is based around finding the best looking women in the world, yet there’s not one straight man involved in the process.  You know how Washington D.C. just held that hearing on birth control, and they didn’t invite a single woman?  Everyone agrees that was ridiculous.  Well, fashion is the exact opposite. It’s based on finding the hottest girls, but the only people doing the choosing are women and gay guys.  It’s absurd.  Saying that Kate Upton is too voluptuous and scantily-clad to be a professional model is like saying that someone is too smart to get into Harvard.  “Sorry buddy, we don’t take people with perfect SAT scores…  maybe you should try Phoenix Online.”  Luckily Upton was able to go on YouTube and slowly ascend to her current stature.  It’s reassuring to see an incredibly good-looking person finally get their way in life.

Interracial relationships are on the rise

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Category: Your Opinion is Wrong

Published on Monday, 20 February 2012 12:36

Written by Tom Z

According to a new study, interracial relationships are at an all-time high.  14.6% of U.S. marriages are now interracial, a giant leap from 6.8% in 1980.  CNN explains:

Apparently, race is mattering less these days, say researchers at the Pew Research Center, who report that nearly one out of seven new marriages in the U.S. is interracial or interethnic. The report released Friday, which interviewed couples married for less than a year, found racial lines are blurring as more people choose to marry outside their race.

I feel qualified to comment on this story, as I am personally involved in an interracial relationship.  My girlfriend is Chinese.  I wish I could take credit for being progressive, or call myself a trendsetter, or pretend that I’m ahead of the curve.  But the truth is, like many interracial couples, I don’t even think about race when I think about my relationship.  My girlfriend is just a human being I enjoy spending time with.  It’s not any different than dating a white girl.  Oh sure, every couple of weeks my girlfriend will cook an Asian meal and the house will smell like soy sauce, and I’m reminded of the fact that I’m in an interracial relationship.  Or once in awhile I’ll forget to lock the doors when I go out, and my girlfriend remembers that she’s dating a white guy.  Most of the time, though, we don’t even think about it.  And that to me is the reason that interracial relationships are on the rise.  To me and my peers, it’s not about the color of someone’s skin.  It’s about loving another person so deeply that you think of them as white.

Is it still worthwhile to attend college?

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Category: Your Opinion is Wrong

Published on Friday, 17 February 2012 15:19

Written by Tom Z

The website Matador Life has a very intriguing new article that questions whether it’s still a good idea for high schools to seek out a college degree.  They bring up some good points.  For example:

1)      In this technological world, you can learn a lot of things on your own.

2)      The average graduate begins a career with a startling amount of debt.

3)      Experience is often more valuable than education.

4)      College doesn’t teach kids how to be entrepreneurs.

There are several other reasons but those are my favorites.  However, I’m going to give you two reasons why you should still attend college.

1)      College is fucking awesome.

2)      You need a degree to get a good job.

I graduated with a B.A. in Communications.  That’s right, Communications.  Every joke you’ve heard about that major is absolutely true.  I learned nothing in college, except the rules to Asshole and how to make a Geocities page sound like a credible source.  I went to my school’s library once in four years.  For my senior thesis, I wrote about being too distracted to write a senior thesis paper.  This was long before being “distracted” was a thing, and in hindsight, it was possibly the most brilliant thing I’ve ever written.  Still, my senior thesis was about video games and the Internet and contained zero documented reference sources.  This is the kind of education you get with a college degree, and it costs you roughly $100 grand.

Nevertheless, you need that degree.  Sure you can get a job without a college degree, but if you’re looking for an elite job, one that pays good money and leaves you financially secure for life, it still pays to have that degree.  Want to be an engineer?  Check out the careers site for United Technologies and see how many jobs they’re offering to non-college graduates.  Want to be in finance?  Go to the Goldman Sachs career site and see how far that high school diploma will get you.  You can’t be a teacher, a doctor or a nurse without the appropriate diploma.  If you want to be a plumber, that’s cool, go do it.  But to work in most corporate settings, you need that college degree before you can even begin discussing your experiences and skill set.

Instead of looking at college as an esteemed institute of higher learning, I prefer to view my tuition as a $100,000 cover charge.  I showed my credentials to the bouncer, paid my fee, went inside, had a blast and left with some bar schwag (i.e., a diploma).  Whether I hooked up after the bar closed, that was up to me and my ability to charm people.  But if I never paid that cover charge, I wouldn’t have gotten inside in the first place, and I never would have had any chance with all those drunk sorority sluts.  Instead I would have had to hit on townies at the after-hours falafel stand.  And while that works sometimes, it’s not the greatest plan.

Mexican government seizes 15 tons of meth

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Category: Your Opinion is Wrong

Published on Thursday, 16 February 2012 12:08

Written by Tom Z

Last week, Mexican authorities busted up a drug warehouse in Jalisco and seized 15 tons of meth.  From CNN:

The Mexican army has seized more than 15 tons of methamphetamine from a clandestine laboratory in a remote area of the state of Jalisco, west of the capital, the country's Secretary of National Defense said Thursday.

Also seized in the raid, which occurred Tuesday on the Villareal Ranch in the municipality of Tlajomulco de Zuniga, were materials that can be used in the production of the drugs -- including more than 2.5 tons of caustic soda, it said in a statement.

This is great news.  People always warn you about the dangers of drugs, or complain about how the War on Drugs is a failure, but no one ever really differentiates between various types of drugs.  It’s either “drugs are bad, mmmkay” or “the War on Drugs must end now!”  Marijuana is harmless, but meth is a horrible drug that turns people into violent monsters.  Somehow they’re grouped together.  It’s like if America had a heartburn problem and we decided that you couldn’t have food anymore.  Orange juice might sting the throat, but grain-based products are perfectly fine, Goddammit! 

How to protest

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Category: Your Opinion is Wrong

Published on Wednesday, 15 February 2012 19:58

Written by Tom Z

Here’s an interesting article titled “How To Be Outraged in America” from the website Common Dreams.  The article discusses the similarities and differences between the Susan G. Komen/Planned Parenthood controversy, and the outrage over M.I.A.’s middle finger during the Super Bowl.

Let's call the kind of outrage Komen's decision ignited the healthy kind of outrage, in diametric opposition of PTC's childish pseudo-indignation, an informed and electrifying kind of reaction that had the wonderful consequence of alerting tens of thousands, even millions of people to the fact that not only is one of the nation's leading charities violently lopsided, fundamentally misguided and not so deserving of your dollars, but that Planned Parenthood is, well, just the opposite.

I’ve written about M.I.A.’s finger previously.  To recap:  I don’t give a shit.  As far as the Planned Parenthood controversy, I actually side with the Komen foundation on that one.  They do enough good already by fighting breast cancer.  If they don’t want to solve the teen pregnancy issue, that’s their business.  Do you want them to teach your kids Spanish as well?  Get birth control at one of the 8 million other places and let Komen focus on women with breast cancer.

Now I want to talk about the real issue.  Protests.  There are way too many of them going on in America right now.  How do people do it?  Even if I wanted to protest something, I wouldn’t have the time.  I have shit to do.  When it comes to protesting, it seems like caring about institutional change is the secondary requirement.  The number one requirement is having nothing else going on.  Also, protesters have to do a better job advertising what exactly they’re protesting.  This weekend I saw a protest that featured a guy with a billboard hanging around his neck, someone with a sign urging drivers to honk, and a guy dressed as Uncle Sam.  I couldn’t tell if it was Occupy Wall Street, a local union protest, or a Presidents’ Day Sale at Bob’s Discount Furniture.  Hire a marketing guy, for Christ’s sake.

Valentine's Day, You're Out - An except from my book, The Meaning of Life (and AIDS Jokes)

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Category: Your Opinion is Wrong

Published on Tuesday, 14 February 2012 15:56

Written by Tom Z

[In honor of Valentine's Day, I'm posting this short excerpt from my new book, The Meaning of Life (and AIDS Jokes).  This comes from a chapter entitled "The Holiday Calendar According to Tom Z," in which I get rid of useless holidays and create a new set of national celebrations for America.  Get the book here.]

February – Monday after the Super Bowl – Lennon’s Day

Valentine’s Day, you’re out.  I’m fine with turning a sacred idea like love into a consumerist Hallmark holiday, but I can’t support a day where the goal is to drive all single girls to suicide.  Imagine if you made a holiday where all races got to celebrate, except Native Americans had to sit in the dark and cry.  That's basically what Valentine's Day is, but in this case Native Americans are 24-year-old brunettes in sweatpants with ice cream all over their face.  I care too much about single girls to condone that sort of thing.  So instead, we replace it with Lennon’s Day, a day where we celebrate love in all its forms, be it a relationship with a spouse or the love you share with your best friend.  Of course we’ll name this day after John Lennon, the number one all-time advocate of love.  I toyed with the idea of making the daytime part of this holiday called Lennon’s Day and the nighttime part called Paris Hilton Night, because we all know where love leads to, but I think we’ll just stick with Lennon’s Day.  And it will occur the day after the Super Bowl, because let’s be honest, no one is productive on that day anyway.