The Sunshine Empire

Those who study history often try to pinpoint what caused a great empire to fall. Whether it was the mysteries of the Mayans, or the epic declines of the Roman and British empires, everything from military strength to culture is revealed. I believe that the point that the American empire truly began it’s decline was the premier of the television show Survivor, as this was the starting point for the age of reality television. Americans have always been in love with the idea of being famous, but the past week has show how debased Americans will become to get a reality show. We have reality shows about uninteresting celebrities, absurd bounty hunters, and midget families.

Let’s forget for a moment that anyone that names a child of their’s Falcon should have him taken by Children and Family Services on principle, but seeing what lengths the balloon boy’s family would go to in order to shop their own reality show was appalling. Also this week, societal sycophant Nadya Suleman’s fertility doctor was expelled from the fertility society that he was a member of. After the precedent set by John and Kate every woman that loads her uterus full of enough embryos to constitute a litter will think that it’s just a matter of getting a publicist and a fertility doctor to make it on television, and we all see how well TLC has been for the future of the Gosselin children. When the Chinese have their children studying the science of flight, Falcon’s parents had him studying the science of the publicity stunt. If the measure of a nation is its average person’s marketability for a 6 show run on E network, then we know that the final chapter in the great American empire is beginning.