Anyone notice how gradually talented, not necessarily attractive people are being shoved out the way in favour of 'beautiful' (and I use that word loosely) vacuous people.
It started when I kept spending an an odd half hour here and there watching you tube clips of old TOTP shows. Now even allowing for changing trends and fashions and haircuts etc I noticed that in the seventies and first half of eighties the performers were not necessarily attractive (some where) but they all generally had talent and character. So think for example Phil Collins. I doubt anyone would say that a short, balding, overweight man was attractive but most would say he has talent. Alot of the performers are just dressed in jeans and tshirt (so not giving a hoot about image it was all about the music). Then from the late eighties onwards it became manufactured bands and pretty people. Not saying some of those songs weren't catchy because they were but generally the trend became towards attractive people singing songs others had wrote with a well honed image. Obviously bands like Coldplay etc don't fall into this.
Then Strictly come Dancing. If you go back to the very first season (which I loved) it was much lower standard of dancing with more real people. I stopped watching it after a few years when I noticed they were replacing the older professional dancers with very young model like dancers. Even the female older judges were not immune to being replaced (too old, not pretty enough). The difference between season 1 and now is like night and day. Also it was quieter with less shrieking and attention seeking.
Then I move onto women and their careers. I was leaving school in the eighties and women were very much starting to have careers rather than jobs and go to uni. A few had moved into male dominated industries like engineering and were been taken seriously. Still a long way to go but a start. Inspiring women in the media were the likes of Anita Roddick. Now I feel like it is all going horribly wrong. Yes there are still successful woman achieving great things but it all seems to be getting overshadowed by these silly, shallow 'influencers' and only fans people. I'm starting to feel ashamed of my gender. These woman of low moral values are making woman in general be seen as move vunerable and worth less consideration and respect. Again 'pretty' people are getting famous for wearing the right clothes, having the right hair, pouting alot and recommending products by other people. I find it all horribly depressing like the human race is destroying itself.
Finally on the topic of porn (slightly off topic as not so much about pretty people but about society going down hill). I know quite alot about this as I had a long term partner who was addicted to porn (this was twenty years ago by the way when internet porn has been around for a few years). I didn't really want to go down the porn wormhole but I did. Partly to try and understand and partly to try and help him (I couldn't and we broke up eventually). Even then the porn out there was just shocking. It was like any topic or subject you could think about, someone had made a video on it. There were videos on matters that just seem to strip females of their dignity and privacy (one a woman showing you her period blood on a pad (WTF), videos with lactating women (a big fantasy with some men it seems), a woman walking on taking a shit and walking off (seriously). I mean these videos were not in any way 'sexy' or 'pretty' they were just degrading for women. Plus a scary insight into what men want to look at.
I actually found it frightening what some of them contained. For point of reference I went into the 'vintage' porn sections to see what they contained. Now apart from the funny hairstyles and moustaches etc the videos were definately more about actual sex, contained far more what I would call normal sex and quite alot of them actually showed what would be normal foreplay for most people with the female getting pleasured. I realise now that as a teen in the eighties men giving woman oral sex was the new big thing (thankfully) and so all my boyfriends growing up wanted to do this. Now I despair at all this anal sex, choking, slapping, spitting. I mean this is not about sex anymore this is violence and degradation. I am so glad I grew up when I did with real music, talented people getting recognition, men courting women and treating them with respect and marrying them, women getting recognition in the workforce for their brains and talent and not just the size of their breasts.
Now I know I have generalised in some areas. For example in the seventies and early eighties woman were treated like pretty little airheads more in the workforce and nude calenders were commonplace. Gameshows on tvs had the trolley dollys (Play your cards right with Bruce) and we had Benny Hill smut to contend with. Even though alot of that was in your face and probably didn't potray women that well, there was an innocence to it that seems to be lost now.
Men would date you and 'try it on' and you would slap them away, be horrified and they would be most apologetic to your fact at least. Now I worry so much about what are men will be like in twenty years. When I am an old woman, the males of our society will have been brought up on a diet of violent porn, only fans and the like. That makes me feel very very vunerable and scared even now in my fifties and terrified for older me.
I remember giving up my seat on buses for old people or pregnant woman when I was a child and there did just seem to be much more care for each other and kindness in general.
Anyway I have kind of veered of topic from where I started but I am just feeling more and more uneasy with so much of society nowadays. I am very glad my best days are behind me and feel very lucky to have grown up in the eighties and nineties when houses were cheap and plentiful, places were less crowded, people seemed to be more considerate and kind, talented people were famous and people behaving in a poor manner where frowned upon and felt pressure to improve their behaviour. I even miss people dressing smartly and being slim.
And don't get me started on fillers, botox, plastic surgery. I love seeing how natural the movie stars etc were in the older stuff. Yes they were beautiful but natural. Hardly anyone had big boobs or whatever else women are getting done (butt lifts apparantely). I don't even think woman with all that stuff in their face in their twenties looks good. They look older, harder, less innocent,less sweet and fresh faced. I'm sure there are lots of natural young girls out there but there are lots who look ridiculous.
Anyway sorry if I have depressed everyone and again I know I have generalised and it does not apply to every band/person/man.
Love to hear what everyone else thinks