Other - Friday, December 11, 2009 10:14 - 16 Comments

The Tiger Woods Debacle

I generally avoid celebrity stories such as this like the plague. But a commenter asked me to mention my thoughts on it, and well, fuck it, it’s my blog, so deal.

- My knee-jerk reaction to these kind of “celebrity-gate” stories when they happen is always a disinterested, “who cares?” I don’t really understand why everybody gets such a thrill out of digging into some guy’s personal problems and personal business. I have about 1521 more important things to worry about in my life, so I tend to focus on those, and the constant distractions of, “OMG, HE WAS SNORING WHEN THEY FOUND HIM,” flashing everywhere gets tiring very quickly.

- I will never understand the conventional wisdom that athletes, musicians and celebrities are somehow supposed to be held to the highest standard. This seems to exist mostly in the USA from what I can tell. We have this deranged desire to hold our public figures morally accountable TO US for THEIR personal problems and issues. We saw it with Bill Clinton. And now we see it with Tiger — people saying he should take a year off the tour, how he should cancel his endorsements, how he should issue a press conference, etc. When the fuck did we get this right? We forget that these guys are just humans too. I mean, over 1/3 of the US population will cheat on their spouse at some point — the world doesn’t stop for them. Why should it stop for Tiger? Because he can swing a golf club better than anybody else? That’s ridiculous.

The media’s argument for this is that our celebrities and athletes are “role models,” followed by some trite statement about the children and setting good examples, blah, blah, blah. Lil’ Wayne was once confronted with this argument in an interview where his private life came up. He responded, “If you need a celebrity to tell you how to live, maybe you shouldn’t have been born.” Amen.

- And finally, I guess the pick up related part of all of this: you have a billionaire golfer in his prime, he’s constantly traveling and meeting people, he’s one of the most famous people on the planet — is ANYBODY surprised that he was banging some hotties on the side? Seriously… I’d be more surprised if he wasn’t.

I really think what’s keeping this story alive is just how bizarre it is. Yeah, there’s a lot of parts of it that don’t make sense. But guess what? They don’t make sense because it’s a private matter, and they’re going to keep it that way… as it’s their right.

So move along… nothing to see here.