A reason to fear, and a reason to hope

We know that there may be a fair number of our readers that never got the chance to see Idiocracy, a recent film about, for lack of a better term, the dumbing down of America (one can assume that the rest of the world is along for the ride, too, but we only see America). This isn't horribly surprising, as the film was relatively buried, and is slowly working its way towards cult status (oddly, the same type of progression that director Mike Judge's previous film, Office Space, followed).

What is surprising (although it probably shouldn't be) is that FOX, the studio that made a point of backing the film only to later bury its chances at the box office, is now working with Redux Beverages (the makers of Cocaine) to produce a new energy drink. That's right, folks. Before long, you too will be able to drink Brawndo and "win at yelling".

We won't go into the details of the film, least of all the portions about Brawndo, but we do have to wonder somewhat about the thought process behind this. After all, creating a product off of a movie isn't new. Creating a product that is heralded in said movie as being one of the reasons behind the steady downfall of civilization seems like either the most brilliant, or the most foolish, marketing ploy in the history of commercialism. Either way, we can rest easy with the knowledge that our thirst can be mutilated. After all, "It's got electrolytes."

But there is hope. According to scientists, our brains actually have a way to help filter information such as the creation of Brawndo, Paris Hilton, and Regis Philbin out of our subconscious. Linked to memory, a sort of "irrelevance filter" exists, helping to weed out distractions and allowing us to focus on more of the important elements of life. If only E! and VH1 had the same sort of filters.

Meanwhile, we're pretty happy that they haven't found an irreverence filter. If they do, we're out of a job.