Reaction: South Park's #REHASH

Hello again dear readers. Sorry this is a late post, got caught up in life, but here it finally is, my reaction to South Park's latest run, #REHASH. As you all may know, my first impressions to the news of PewDiePie appearing on the episode were...radical. Just check out my previous posts and you'll see what I mean. Now, my opinion of Pewds and his content remains the same, but the way I go about expressing it will of course change, as will my initial reactions to any other news. Anyway, the show, as always, displayed the social commentary it's famous for, and the satire in this particular episode couldn't be more accurate about our generation. But before I get into that, I'll start off with a recap. If you want to watch the episode for yourself, just click here to go to SP's website. I will of course exclude spoilers and only talk about the gist of it all. Without further ado, here's my take on #REHASH.

So the episode starts off with Kyle wanting to play the new Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare with his little bro, Ike, who prefers instead to watch commentary on the game by, you guessed it, PewDiePie. This upsets Kyle, who cannot help but watch his little brother and his friends miss out on the enjoyment of playing new video games because they spend their time watching other people commenting on them instead. This is Kyle's storyline throughout the episode. On Cartman's end, he decides to become like Pewds and start his own YouTube channel (Cartman Braaaa!), only instead of commenting on something, he comments on people commenting on people who comment (I'll give you a moment to make sense of that). Stan's end of the story focuses on his sister, Shelley, who wants to attend a concert put on by today's hottest stars, like Nicki Minaj, Iggy, and Lorde, who happens to be Randy, the Marsh siblings' father, in disguise. The conflict in this branch of the episode is that the music industry these days focuses solely on the sex appeal of the artists, and not the music they make. In addition, to make up for horrible artists, concerts take the easy way out and produce holograms (like the famous 2Pac hologram), playing old music to make up for lack of ingenuity--hence the episode's title, #REHASH. A brief appearance is made by talk show hostess Wendy Williams, who preaches about other people becoming quasi-leaders and having their followers blindly following and cheering them on--only to spark this such reaction in her own audience, proving her, of course, to be a hypocrite. Concurrently, all the separate storylines intertwine to convey the ultimate message that our generation of entertainment focuses solely on trashy artists, two-faced quasi-leaders, and nothing more than rehashing content, taking away from not only the originality that once dominated the entertainment industry, but also taking away the experience of actually enjoying it for ourselves.

Reaction Time
Let me start off by saying that yes, I judged too quickly. I thought this episode was going to be one of the worse headaches I've ever experienced. Thankfully, Pewds' sequences are kept to a minimal. In terms of hilarity and content, the episode was just as enjoyable as you would expect out of Trey and Matt. I appreciate that they kept the kids' angry rants (particularly Cartman's) to a minimum, so the humor actually focused on the content rather than the cheapness. True, a teeny bit more of the angry outbursts that made the first episodes funny would've been appreciated, but it's still good nonetheless.

Now, in terms of social commentary, I couldn't agree more. Everything satirized in this episode is hard to disagree with. The music industry nowadays is so...how shall we call it...decayed, that as time progresses, artists rely more and more heavily on their sex appeal rather than making good music. Oh you didn't hit that chorus right? Better show some booty! Oh your song is such an abomination? Better make a skimpy music video with boobies! That's all millennials care about these days right? Gone are the days when musical artists--and any other entertainment companies--released content for the joy of delivering an enjoyable experience. Now, it's all about the sex and the money. Fortunately there are still good musical artists, good video game developers, good movie makers that still deliver great content amid tons of corporate tactics to make a fast buck. But the fact remains that so long as big-name artists continue putting on their skimpy shows, the musical corporations behind the scenes will be plotting to find some way to squirm themselves out of this rabbit hole. How? By bringing back holograms of great artists, or something of the like.

Now on the issue of kids spending their lives inside on their iPads, this is becoming more and more apparent and worse every year with the annual release of copy/paste Apple products. But the issue at hand is that instead of enjoying and playing new video games, kids, and pretty much everyone, prefer to watch other people enjoying the game for them! What's the point in that? Sure, I like to watch video game commentators myself, but I don't let that replace the first-hand pleasure of kicking back, relaxing, and playing the game myself--if I had that time, of course. And again, touching on the growing issue of corporate sales, video games these days just aren't innovative anymore, so I have to agree, to some extent, with those who prefer to watch commentators. I mean take a look at the PS4 and the X-Box One. Besides better graphics, what other innovation do we see in the new generation of video games that distinguishes it from previous generations? Once-great series like The Elder Scrolls, Call of Duty, Assassin's Creed, etc, they're all far cries of what they used to be (well, except maybe Elder Scrolls, but you get the point). Now it's all about releasing the game, no matter how buggy or glitchy it is, so long as the employees get their payout. I know there are people reading this and thinking Omg you nerd! Stop ranting about your stupid video games and get on with your post! Get a life! Get a job! Get a girlfriend! Get off the internet! What I'm trying to prove is that the entertainment industry is all about the money now. And you know what sucks the most? It's that this trend is gonna continue because the people allow it to. As long as they see big-ticket names on the boxes, those dollar bills are coming out, no matter what unstable condition the medium is in. 

Theres tons more to be said but I don't wanna take up too much of you guys' time so check out the episode for yourselves and hopefully you'll feel the same way I did. Sorry again for the lateness, hope you enjoyed reading this. As always share, stay up to date, and stay safe peeps, have a good one. :)