The worsening of contemporary songs and cartoons

This short essay is about songs and cartoons, and how they reflect the increasing meaninglessness of society...

Songs these days are substandard compared to songs in 'my generation'. In 'my generation', both English and Mandarin songs are so much more melodious and the lyrics are often touching, educational, and/or much more meaningful. Personally, I do not like to listen to songs which are meaningless, even if they have catchy tunes.

The lyrics of a currently very popular song goes like this, "Mayee-yahee...Mayee-yahoo.....Mayee-yahoo....Mayee-ya-heh-heh...." My wife says it's quite cute, but I simply cannot stand it! Especially if she hums that song!

I told her that this song is really written for frogs to listen to, not human beings. And she challenged me to post this statement on my blog, saying that I will definitely become the number one public enemy in Singapore if I do so. Well, perhaps just let me say first of all that I do think the singer sings well and has a lovely voice. But still, with due apologies, I have to say that I really can't stand that song because it's just meaningless! So it's the song that I don't like, not the singer. Anyway, this is a free society and I can certainly express my personal views. So any attempt to make me follow the crowd and say that this 'frog-song' is good will simply show that this society is intolerant of dissenting views, that the nail which sticks out gets hammered down. This will then be an interesting discovery for me personally. So either way, I will gain something. In any case, does Heavenly Sword ever come across as one who is afraid of anything?

Well, I've digressed. Back to the songs. It is very unfortunate that in today's world, it is often songs without very deep meaning(s) that can strike a chord in people's heart, for society and life today are in general becoming more and more lacking in meaning and substance. So in a way, the kinds of songs that you get merely reflects the state of society. Another trend is that people do not like to think so much. So songs that make people think are simply not welcomed! This is a reflection of Gresham's law - it will always be the lousy things that dominate the world. Because the taste of the majority tends not to be the 'best' if you judge 'taste' in terms of strict professional standards! Interestingly, this is also why people who write garbage blogs have lots of readers - precisely because they write garbage!

Cartoons these days are horrible too. Just look at all those repulsive cartoons these days. In particular, look at the atrocious cartoons that you are 'forced' to watch on the buses thanks to the Mobile TV. I feel a strong urge to lodge an official complaint about those cartoons. The military themes are highly inappropriate for children, who are growing up and would surely benefit more from more 'innocent' and more easily understandable themes rather than such 'dark' and complex issues concerned with warfare and military technologies. Who cares about these technologies of death and violence anyway! Why bombard children with such garbage images when they are so young? Just look at the faces of the characters in these cartoons - totally unlovable, totally sinister, and totally stuck up. Are these the kinds of 'personalities' that we wish to expose our younger generation to? Just look at the things they say: they are full of hatred and desire to kill ("sha qi" in Mandarin). To me, cartoons should be cute, have lovable characters, and focus on more light-hearted settings.

To conclude, songs are getting meaningless and cartoons are becoming more 'adult-like'. Will there be a day when I can listen to more classical music or contemporary instrumental music rather than 'mayee-yahee, mayee-yahoo' FROGs' song everywhere I go? Will MDA please show some good cartoons such as the cute little Smurfs? I don't think my wishes will come true, for the world is undergoing a process that could be known as 'meaningless-ization'!