A Culture of Henne's

Everyone Wants to be a Star

The latest parental escapade to get their family noticed is the Henne (as in hiney - horses ass) Family. There’s the alien believing, tornado chasing, wife swapping reality show wanna be’s who decided to create some publicity for themselves.

Obviously they swallowed too much helium while filling their silver weather balloon.

Enter Falcon Henne - the stooge in the hoax who ended up hiding - the only bright one of the bunch - while the Henne family, the Colorado law enforcement folks and every news outlet in the universe chased the silver spaceship across parts of Colorado, convinced by Henne that his six-ear-old was inside.

Of course he wasn’t and the parents now face a boatload of charges and fees connected with the chase and hoax.

They’re not the first. We have the Dugger family who keep squirting out babies to keep their reality show on the air.

Don’t’ forget Octomom. Incredibly she got a reality show too. She must be channeling Anna Nicole Smith for tips on how to act incredibly stupid and get paid for it.

And then there are the little darlings of the child pageant shows, the Housewives from everywhere, Bridezillas…… the list goes on and on and on and on and on.

At first I wanted to ask why these people demean themselves to the point of looking like the lowest of the low. But I realized, like Omarossa, they all crave their 15 minutes of fame and the chance to make some quick cash and occasionally some big bucks. There are always people who will do just about anything for a buck.

In full disclosure I once ate a garden snail for the lofty sum of twenty five cents.

But the bigger question came to mind.

What is it about us as a society that craves watching these misfit fame seekers made total fools of themselves again and again?

Why do we encourage them?

Is it a “there before the grace of God go I?” mentality.

Or - do we so crave more and more of this insanity as an escape from our self imposed hum drum lives?

Whatever the reason, our cultural obsession with these celebrity wanna be’s will continue to drive the Henne’s and other families to get more outrageous with their attempts at fame. As the demand goes up, so will the extremeness of the stunts. I’m sure that one day someone will die trying to get on a reality show. And I’m sure there will be a Neilson record viewership as the death is turned into a special.

Historians tell us we can tell the nature of a culture by its amusements. The Roman’s had the circus. Hitler had his martial parades, we have our reality shows.

What a way for our society to be remembered.