Is America living under a culturally iconic rock?

Itzel Basualdo/Contributing Writer

The Beatles: ring a bell?

Despite their worldly, out of this universe, global, galactic and international fame, you may be surprised–or not–to hear that some of the people around you have no idea who this idolized rock ‘n’ roll quartet is.

In February 2012, the infamous veteran Beatle Paul McCartney took the stage at the 54th annual Grammy Awards, igniting the social networking site Twitter with confusion and bewilderment.

“Who is Paul McCartney?” rapidly became a trending topic of the site, with users making cretinous observations and posting instantly stupefied remarks.

“Who is he, he hella old too,” and “im about to sounds naiive as F but who the hell is Paul McCartney??? this song sucks btw,” were only a few of the jumble of the ill-made ignorant tweets that overtook Twitter.

Incredulously appalling – yes, I know.

Now, we’ve all heard that America is becoming increasingly ignorant.

The next generations seem to be absorbed in a warp of mere futility, disconnected from the rest of society and unaware of almost all of their surroundings.

It’s true, American society has come to be known for thinking inside the box for blissfully indulging in the realm of fast food, accepting our political ingenuity and lagging in many academic aspects. We’ve voluntarily acquired the title of ignorant over the years.

And the clamor over the ecumenical rockstar really didn’t make things much better.

It is bad enough that not too long ago, Newsweek released a survey in which 29 percent of one thousand United States citizens were unable to name the current Vice President and six percent couldn’t date Independence Day (the fourth of July, seriously?)

So, that only goes to show that not only do we know nothing about our own didactic matters, but we don’t know anything about pop culture, either.

Sad, that’s what it is.

This problem stems deep within the tenets of American culture.

More and more we are placing value on abstract objects that are meaningless, the material and vain and forgetting about our past and what makes us who we truly are.

We are paying more attention to the shallow and luring, listening to songs which repeatedly emphasize promiscuity, idiotic phrases – YOLO, you only live once – and a world of remote materialism that the rest of society dim-wittedly fantasizes about.

Putting the issue regarding our meager education system aside and the hooks the media places to reel in blind spectators, we are left pointing fingers.

To whom?

It’s time we point them at ourselves.

 opinion@fiusm.com