“Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people sharing all the world”
— Imagine
The irony of those lyrics being sung by rich celebrities this week was not lost on the world.
If you missed the viral social video - first off congratulations and I wish I was you in being able to avoid the cringe. You don't need to go out and find it - especially if you are at all musically inclined as it will make your ears bleed.
That being said, the tone deafness of the video is not only in the singers themselves but also in the way in which it was presented. For those of you who have not seen the video, it was put up by Gal Gadot on her Instagram page and contained short clips of her celebrity friends singing segments of Imagine by the Beatles. The video shows the insulated nature of celebrities when compared to the everyday people in the world as they sang from their large private mansions as they self quarantined. In a rare sign of unity, people both on the left and right of the political isle in the United States quickly condemned the video - pointing out the absurdity of rich celebrities singing lyrics such as "imagine no possessions" from the fancy couches of their large multi-million dollar mansions.
Thankfully comedians quickly picked up on this and made their own parody video poking fun at the celebrities. Now I will admit - some of the people in this video are in the same boat as Gal and her friends - but at least they are willing to make fun of themselves and the other rich people. They talked about keto and buying Purell to wash a car. In this time of global uncertainty anytime someone makes something to laugh at should be applauded - and we should not let this uncertainty in the world stop us from finding simple ways to make us smile throughout this time.
But this begs the question - if the Corona virus ever turned into a Fallout style end of the world scenario - how useful would actors, musicians, comedians, political commentators, and even technology people be? In a world destroyed and needing to be rebuilt from essentially the ground up, people who have skills such as carpentry, plumbing, manual labor, electrical will be essential to get society up and running again. As this virus continues to spread, this thought has not left my head at all. If something were to happen to cause the current infrastructure of the world to be destroyed, the skill set I have (programming) essentially becomes useless and one of the last used skillsets as people will require things like food, water and shelter first before things like computer servers become relevant again.
No matter how good a musician is, their music will not keep me warm or keep the rain off my head in the case of a global disaster.
I hate saying that - as I enjoy music and the arts. That being said, we are not in a Fallout situation and once the fear and panic of the virus subsides the general public will start elevating the celebrities to a high position in society again. But until then - they (celebrities) are starting to learn what it is like to be a normal person and all of us get some cringe and humor out of them trying to stay relevant in a situation/world which does not require any celebrities.
-Paul
