Just Don't Look.

 Pop culture, much like bacteria or most species of vermin, is everywhere. We can't always see it, but it surrounds us at all times.
 As a result, and much to my own frustration, I know who Harry Stiles is, despite never having heard any of One Direction's music. I don't even know if they've released any songs. I'm told they have, but I've never heard them, and the whole "1D" phenomenon (named after the depth of the band members' personalities) seems to have just been manufactured overnight as a deliberate fad. They're the aural equivalent of POG.

At least Pogman had charisma...
 

 The ubiquity of pop culture tat, and the weird way in which it bleeds into our consciousness, was brought home to me today when I ended up reading a short piece about some asshole who won The X-Factor, saying that he'd auditioned for The Voice but had disliked the show and felt like it was rigged. He went on to say that he'd ditched The Voice and gone on to "win a bigger show," as though he's accomplished anything at all.

 Anyone who knows anything is aware that this gloating tit will be forgotten by Christmas - I've already forgotten his name and can't be bothered to look it up, but he has the sort of tattoos that make you want to punch him in the face and the sort of face that makes you glad you listened to the tattoos.

 In the interests of some semblance of fair play, I gave him a chance and watched a video of one of his songs, "You're Nobody 'Til Somebody Loves You," which was embedded at the bottom of the pointless article. I did this mostly just to check that Dean Martin hadn't risen from the dead and started working for Simon Cowell. It was awful, not just musically, but sonically. It had all the melody and charm of a chainsaw hitting a nail during a tourettes sufferers' logging competition.

 I'd go so far as to say that of all the unpleasant things I've put into the holes in my head - and I once got the top of a biro stuck up my nose for fifteen minutes when I was a child, because children are stupid - this song won the "worst thing put in my ears" category comfortably.

 Somewhere around here I also began tracing my own movements. How had I ended up mindlessly reading this shit, much less listening to the song? I realised that the link had come via my Twitter feed, because I follow Digital Spy, a mindless "celeb gossip" type website that occasionally has information about films I might like or musicians whose work I actually enjoy.

 The more I thought about it, the more I realised that the ratio of trivial, painful bullshit I don't care about (interviews with X-Factor "winners," plot details to upcoming Eastenders arcs) to things I'm actually interested in was about 99-to-1. 

 So I unfollowed Digital Spy. I'm also, from now on, planning to stop clicking any links that have "Daily Mail" anywhere in them. I'm going to make a concerted effort, for the next few weeks, not to pay any attention to this new media horseshit about dull, manufactured subjects. 

 And maybe, if I ignore this stuff, it'll all go away.

 Wish me luck.