WordCircus: Five Signs that the World is Not Getting Smarter

5. It’s Twerking

“So disgusting! To think she used to be a Mousketeer! She’s ruined foam fingers and teddy bears forever! Ew!”

Everyone’s talking about Miley’s “performance.” Which was, I’m sure, the entire point. Well played, little Mouseketeer. Well played.

Suckers!

4. Gotcha!

This summer some network ran a show called Capture. The premise: let’s rip off The Hunger Games. Except they’ll be playing for money instead of their lives. Come to think, beyond the costumes and set, it really isn’t that much like Hunger Games at all. It’s much more like the first twenty minutes of the 1985 movie Gotcha!, which was about people trying to shoot each other with paintball guns. Now that’s a classic film.

Let’s all pop some popcorn and watch people chase each other through the woods on what is essentially a corporate retreat with a soundtrack and screen captions.

3. $9,523.89

That’s about how much the Robertson family (they of the Duck Dynasty) will make for every one MINUTE of mugging for the A&E cameras on this “reality” series this season. I’ve seen it and it’s pretty funny. But is it ten grand a minute funny? I guess that question’s already been answered

2. Keeping up with the quality TV

According to a quick and very depressing Google search, Keeping up With the Kardashians has been on for eight seasons.

Meanwhile, Firefly got yanked off the air after ten episodes. Yeah, I don’t know what else to say.

1. Symbolic Tiger

The other day, I saw one of those World Wildlife Fund commercials. They have been running commercials like this since I was a kid, urging folks to adopt a tiger or an elephant or some other exotic animal by sending in a donation. In the old days they sent you cute mailing address labels with pandas on them. I don’t know if you still get the stickers, but I did notice that the ads now include a word that definitely wasn’t there before:

“For just eight dollars a month, you can SYMBOLICALLY adopt a tiger.”

So now the tragic heartbreak of finding out that you haven’t been able to purchase an actual tiger for just $96.00 can be avoided. I’m so glad they cleared that up. You’ve really got to wonder what kind of phone calls preceded the rewrite of that script.

“When will you be mailing me my tiger? Can I track the shipping? What does he eat?...What do you mean symbolically adopt?!? I want my money back!”