Enjoy lack of substance in year of the Tiger

Enjoy lack of substance in year of the Tiger

By Nicole E. Avery
GVL Columinst
2/21/2010

This is my year according to the Chinese zodiac calendar and I -- similar to the rest of the people born in '86 -- gladly bear the marks of the tiger.

According to the characteristics of the Tiger sign, I am lively, lucky, resilient and self-sufficed, but there's another Tiger who outshines the rest of us, even though this should by right be our year.

I heard it on the radio Friday while riding on the CV to Grand Valley State University shuttle bus to Kirkhof that Tiger Woods had publicly apologized to his wife and fans for his unsolicited behavior.

The radio personalities of this particular sports channel commented that without being adorned head to foot in sports logos, Tiger was a mere shadow of the man he once was.

Woods had multiple affairs -- how many celebrities haven't had affairs? Mostly the least known and least attractive ones I would presume.

This is old news. Why are we still talking about this? Is it because Tiger checked into rehab and absence has made the fans and paparazzi grow fonder of trying to get the scoop on what Tiger does next?

I love how when men cheat, they go to rehab. When women cheat -- well, let's just say they become labeled in a way that might as well plaster a large scarlet letter on their chest.

It's the curse of the double standard -- and we know it well. Men can do it and woman can only complain about men doing it, and the thrill of celebrity sexual liaisons has enabled Tiger to outshine all other world news even when he isn't in the public eye.

Here's the kicker: it isn't just affairs that draw us in like moths to the flame of bad TV reality shows. It's anything and everything that is without substance or quality. There is just something undeniably alluring about being interested in useless information or personal information about people that doesn't really matter because it doesn't change our daily lives.

I wish I could say we should all stop caring about stupid things that make no sense or do not matter, but I like pictures of cats jammed into infant-sized overalls with funny, phonetically spelled sentences in white bold font stamped on them.

Perhaps these useless things do have a function -- even if it is minute. They do make people laugh, give people something to gossip about and for a moment even possibly engage strangers in conversation when they would have otherwise been glued to their iPods or Zunes.

Overzealously practical people might argue that all time must be spent doing something productive, but I think perhaps we should every now and then leave practicality on the shelf and, for our sanity, do something meaningless.

Life is hard, college is tough and to avoid being stuck in a mental rut people need to idly talk about things that take few neurons to understand.

navery@lathorn.com