United In Hate

I can't find the time or energy to write anything thoughtful, so I decided to interview anyone I could about their least favorite media. Humans love the opportunity to rant, and no surprise, most jumped at the opportunity no questions asked. Here are the responses:

Maggie, 26, Marketing Manager

"Dude, FUCK Evan Hansen. I lowkey hate musical theater in general, but especially that one. I was physically in pain trying not to cringe when I saw it. Evan is such a whiny, insufferable bitch and it dilutes any actual constructive conversation on mental health. He acts like an evil super villain to a grieving family and everything still goes his way? AND a 30 year old Ben Platt played a teenager in the movie? So, so wrong."

Jessica 25, News Producer

"YouTubers. All YouTubers. I just never got into them, so maybe I'm biased."

Cillian 26, Video Game Designer

"Love Island. It feels like a parody of teenage discos. Who can get with who. Who can climb the fake social ladder. It’s a reality show built around people who are victims of trends and a toxic UK culture, with people chosen for their appearances- fake boobs, six-packs, veneers, or whatever is trending.
They’re expected to find “love” while constantly sharing or competing for partners with the other contestants, all within highly sexualized scenarios where they’re almost always wearing bikinis or shorts. It’s more like soft-core porn disguised as entertainment. They're often portrayed as incredibly shallow and are regularly mocked or laughed at, but that seems less like a quality of the people themselves and more like a consequence of how the show’s producers construct and edit them & what makes it worse is that a lot of the audience is young. The whole thing ends up making some pretty unhealthy ideas about relationships, sex, and self worth & it just feels like manufactured, exploitative slop."

Alli 29, Park Ranger

"The NFL is overrated. It's a huge time and money suck and they constantly limit who can actually see games by putting up pay walls and changing contracts so certain games are held by certain media stations. The actual time the ball is in motion is like 20 minutes of an hour long game. BUT the hour long game actually ends up taking 3 hours because there's more commercials than actual football. Do you need more? 'Cause I could rant about how the players get away with actual crimes, usually against women, and the coaches are 80% white and less than 10% are black. But over 50% of the players are black so there's a huge racial disparity in between leadership."

Rachel 39, Financial Compliance Manager

"A.I. performers. It's weird and it's creepy and I don't like it. I think A.I. is trying to take over the world. A.I. has started hacking each other and it makes me very uncomfortable. My answer is A.I. musicians."

Chip, 3, Preschooler (interpreted by his mother)

“I love trucks, and I like dogs, but what’s the big deal about paw patrol anyway? Those pups need to learn a thing or two from Miss Rachel”

Moriah, 25, Mechanical Engineer

"I think that Taylor Swift is overrated for a couple of reasons. To start, I believe there has been an over-saturation of her music as well as her life on social media. Every Chiefs game consistently shifted focus from the game to the fact that Travis Kelce’s fiancée was in the stadium. Similarly, the fan base on social media has gone overboard. It feels as though she has been elevated to a higher, god-like status by her fan base, they seem to worship her as more than a human being."

Julie, 64, Retired Teacher

"The song Imagine is totally overrated. People always sing it like it's the most profound thing they've ever heard. If you follow the lyrics it makes no sense. Who would be happy if there was no heaven? That's just depressing."

Theresa, 25, Speech Pathologist

"Love Island. There's just way too much filler."

Grace, 29, Administrative Assistant

"The movie Pulp Fiction is overrated in my opinion. I don't find juxtaposing violence with witty banter funny. It's edgy and inappropriate, but in a way that feels childish to me. I think I liked the ending, but at this point I don't really remember the details."

Charlie. 31, Electrical Engineer

"Rick and Morty isn't that funny, and dumb people thinks it takes science more seriously than it actually does."

Alaina, 23, Library Technician

"The Interstellar movie, I did not like it at all to be honest. I have phased it out of my brain now, but I watched it with my dad and brother awhile ago and we were actually suffering through it. It was kinda boring most of the time and the characters were something."

Herb, 30, Data Analyst

"Jewel's first album, Pieces of You. Every single song sounds so sad and depressing, except for one, which is the best song on the album. But all the other songs might as well be a funeral dirge or about a hundred puppies dying. I grew up listening to it, mostly around bedtime, because I was the youngest and couldn't disagree with what anyone else wanted to play. So I just lay there, at the ripe old age of five, trying to go to sleep while my thoughts kept meandering to my own future demise. Happy thoughts like that."

Charles, 60, Chemical Technician

"Sad clowns. Like, just the concept of sad clowns. So maybe IT by Stephen King?"