YOLO and Idiocracy

I recently saw a film called Idiocracy, in which Joe Bauers gets cryogenically frozen for 500 years, only to reawaken to a world full of idiots. The premise makes the assumption that families who are more productive tend to be less intelligent, more intelligent couples produce less kids, and, therefore, the intelligent die out, and the stupid survive.

Makes sense, I thought; but it wasn't until the year 2505 that I was rendered fully petrified.

In this new society, Starbucks is a brothel of sorts, rubbish dumps reach higher than Everest, and plants are 'watered' with Gatorade because "it has electrolytes". When Mr Bauers asks a bunch of loiterers for directions, they get mad and one of them says, "You're starting to sound faggy." When he pleads with a stranger to help him, and promises gold for his assistance, the stranger replies, "I like moneys." And when Joe enquires where he can get water to drink, the response is, "What, like, water from the toilet?"

I can't speak much for the film's premise since, as it happens, I'm not exactly playing my part in spawning a formidable team of mini-Matts. But needless to say, this extreme decline in human intelligence (and with it, the English language) left me asking, "Could this be happening right now?" And you know what? I think it could, evidenced by the infamous term "YOLO!"

It's a shame it's white. There'll be no hope of concealing my vomit.

Aside from the fact that saying YOLO makes whatever you've just said, are saying, or are about to say contain 100% less integrity, it's also a contradiction. You only live once, yes, so why are you wasting your breath (and reputation) saying YOLO? The term destroys itself, yet no one seems to notice.

Thankfully, not one of my friends takes it seriously. For instance, when Naomi says it, she puts on an extremely pompous English accent and drags the word until you've forgotten whatever it is she was on about. And then we all laugh.

Like 'yous' and 'totes' and other mutations of language, YOLO must only be said as a joke or a jest. We must expose the mutation for what it is, for there are those who do use the term seriously, and it's these people who serve only to pave the slippery slope down which intellect itself will soon tumble and fall... from a teetering pile of junk (a metaphor for crappy words and acronyms) the size of Mount Everest.

And as for the mini-Matts, well, at least now I have a sensible reason to have kids!