In celebrity-obsessed America the most respected people speaking on the subjects of world events, social justice, human relations, economics, politics, and even hard science are Hollywood actors and pro athletes.
I mean, honestly, a man whom Matt Groenig and Co. characterized back in 2000 as a joke future president actually became the President of the United States, largely because he was a TV actor in a reality show. The American electorate voted him into the White House in 2016 almost solely because he’d become famous saying “You’re fired” countless times in NBC-TV’s “The Apprentice.” He’d never been a legislator or a diplomat or a student of global affairs or prepped any other way to become Leader of the Free World. People knew him because he came into their living rooms every Wednesday or Thursday night and that was plenty enough for them to say, “We’ll follow you.”
No movement, no idea, no cause gains traction if it doesn’t have Glenn Close (mental health), Angelina Jolie (refugees), Seth Rogen (Alzheimer’s), Gary Sinise (veterans), or, way back, Jenny McCarthy (antivaxx) stumping for it. In an April 2020 New York Times piece on celebrity activism headlined When Did We Start Taking Famous People Seriously? reporter Jessica Grose wrote that Al Jolson was the first celebrity political endorser, throwing his weight behind then-presidential candidate Warren G. Harding in 1920. Celebrity activisim has only grown in leaps and bounds since that time.
Donald Trump shilled for himself, natch, bringing the phenomenon to its current nadir.
An item I caught in Deadspin this AM got me to thinking about all this, for the umpteenth time. Deadspin is a gotcha-type daily sports news roundup that I read mainly for giggles. Today, reporter Cale Clinton broke the earthshaking news that NFL prospect Tyler Owens, late of Texas Tech University and soon to become a wealthy young lad after April’s pro football draft, has expounded on the nature of the cosmos. The cornerback/safety, Clinton reports, was quoted as saying, “I don’t believe in space.” Journalists furiously scribbled his pronouncements this week during the annual NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis where erstwhile college jocks show off their biceps and cartilages for the league’s general managers and head coaches. Owens was asked about his beliefs because he ran the fastest 40-yard dash among the hopeful pros gathered in Lucas Oil Stadium.
Well, golly, I too want to know what such a speedy defensive back thinks about the universe!
Owens explained: “I’m real religious so I think we’re in a dome right now. I don’t think there’s, like, other planets and stuff like that.” He went on to say he’d caught some flat-earth chat on YouTube, causing him to come to his conclusions. Other news sources report he actually said “…I think we’re alone right now,” rather than “in a dome.” No matter. His meaning is crystal clear either way, and it has nothing at all to do with space, planets, loneliness, or geometric structural forms.
The NFL decision makers at the Combine regularly assess the hopeful players in batteries of physical and intellectual tests designed to establish who the top greyhounds, acrobats, tightrope walkers, strongmen, throwers, rushers, tacklers, and field strategists are in each year’s crop of exiting college football players.
Yep, each and every participant in the 2024 NFL Scouting Combine is a college man, Owens among them. You know college, right? That place where the smartest scientists, researchers, philosophers, and professors prepare your teenager for the rigors of modern life, imparting the latest information about the nature of everything and anything.
Young Tyler Owens, presumably, having been thusly prepared by the faculty at Texas Tech, is now ready to take his place among the leaders of today and tomorrow.
“I thought I used to believe in the heliocentric thing where we used to revolve around the sun and stuff,” Owens continued. “But then I started seeing flat earth stuff and I was like, this is kind of interesting. They started bringing up valid points….”
I caution you not to dismiss young Tyler Owens for his utterances. Well, not too much, at least. He’s 22 years old, for pity’s sake. Do you want to be defined and/or condemned for the goofy stuff you did, said, or believed when you were 22? I think I was 18 when, one time, I told my mother I was a communist. Poor Ma. She gasped and wrung her hands. Which, now that I look back on it, was the main reason I said it. Many people believe a 22-year-old should be a tad more circumspect than an 18-year-old, but a guy devoting his life to the goal of becoming a pro football player can be excused for developing a bit more slowly in the realm of existential thought, especially one capable of running the fastest 40 yard dash at an annual NFL Scouting Combine.
For all we know, when he hits the age of 40 or 50 Tyler Owens may look back on his words and cringe.
If you care to rail against anybody, it should be whoever the reporter was who put a microphone in Tyler’s face and prompted him to tell the world about the cosmos.
It shouldn’t matter to anybody with a clear conscious and a rational sense of priorities what even the best cornerback/safety in the NFL today thinks about anything other than the nuances of playing cornerback/safety. We don’t quiz plumbers or bus drivers or McDonald’s managers or IT geeks on their views concerning the solar system and other such things. So why does anybody care what a potential NFL player thinks about it?
Or an actor? Or a rock star? Or the star and producer of a reality TV show?
Of course, I’m bashing my head against a brick wall because the vast majority of us are dying to know what the likes of Beyoncé and Harry Styles think about the Israel/Hamas War, global warming, AI, and substance abuse. Hell, Beyoncé might even become president one day.
In that case, I wonder what her thoughts about space and the planets are.