Success according to failure

There is a new trend taking us by surprise – and this very trend holds the formula to success. It’s called “hitting rock bottom.” In the 80s, fads that we now laugh at [or consider vintage] took us to new highs. There was actually lovemaking in movies instead of rampant gratuitous sex, and such cinema spoke to the culture of the day. In the 90s, meaningless sex in movies became the norm, but in the new millennium, we are a culture desensitized by such douchebaggery. I’m so glad you’re thinking at this point, “What the hell?” The aforementioned touched on what made success stories – fashionable trends, fecund nudity, famous people who related to us commoners. These formulae, whilst moneymakers even today in their own right, are not the automatic jackpots they once were. Today, tragic figures who overcome adversity are tugging at the heartstrings of the buying public. Tragedy is the new sex.

Take for example, your favourite and mine, Mariah Carey. When she first started her career, she was instantly world famous and spewed an eleven-year-long streak of top-charting singles and multi-platinum albums. Her youth before fame was even seemingly picture perfect. Then came the memorable 2001 bomb Glitter, along with subsequent mental breakdown and crappy album. Sadly, her motor skills deteriorated to the point where she couldn’t even wipe her own ass! All of her past successes came to a very unlucky halt. Suddenly, what was the most successful streak in musical history was rendered bunk as all attention turned to her lack of ability to keep up with her past perfection. We laughed and chortled, but certainly we didn’t care much as this tragedy was exciting and comical. Someone who was automatically a multi-million seller became the subject of media ridicule and scrutiny. Even her 2002 follow-up, Charmbracelet, was barely accepted as a piece of music worth having. Downtrodden, she had to know a new formula was needed to recapture the glory-hole of yore. Album after album would only make us more and more tired of her [just ask Janet Jackson after the boob fracas]. So she replicated the “Madonna-of-the-90s” formula – fuck up royally, fade into obscurity for a few years, let society forget about you, come back better than ever. Basically, that’s what she did when she released 2005’s…um…shit...I’m not really remembering….The Emancipation of Mimi Rogers…or something. The point being, she took her place right atop the musical world once more; however, she suffered immense failure before reclaiming that special circle in the bathroom stall next to the slimy truck driver with fromunda.

Part of why Mariah’s success eventually ran out in 2001 was because she struck gold at EVERY turn…um…GEIGH!!!! That does NOT make for good TV…we do not care to see someone who always had it good then makes it even better. We are more likely to respect the Average Joe or the tragic figure who comes from shit and makes it big. In order to be successful in the eyes of commoners, you must, at some time, be a failure.

Another glittering example of life lived happily-unhappily-happily is Carnie Wilson. It wasn’t too long after chart-topping singles with early 90s supergroup Wilson Phillips that many lenses turned to her uncanny girth. Scrutiny once more led to ridicule, and ultimately the undoing of the group in 1992 after Shadows and Light was met with limited success. Once again, a brilliant star plunged into the dark recesses of poopybutt. Carnie’s “I’ll show you, motherfuckers” moment came when she decided to have gastric bypass surgery – and show it online. Right before three internet viewers, Carnie underwent the procedure that would cost her millions of pounds. Even though the tragedy of fat was conquered, she never quite reclaimed her musical stature; however, she did meet success on the magazine circuit as the cover girl for successful surgical weight loss and was met with a certain respect in society again. But she’s getting fat once more so the above story was really just a load.

Madonna certainly milked this formula for all its worth after she stopped being an automatic hit maker in the early 90s. Whilst her albums during that time remained commercial bonanzas, they were critically panned time and again. In 1992, we were graced with Erotica, and somewhere in a very short time frame came the coffee-table book Sex and the god-awful flick Body of Evidence. Basically, Madonna unleashed a multimedia sexual assault that eventually turned away even the most die-hard of her fans. It was widely believed that this backlash was the end of her career. She was in hiding for 2 years before she reappeared on the charts with “I’ll Remember,” a ballad-esque ditty from a movie called With Honors. Even with all that societal scorn under her belt, she always fared well with songs from movies, and this was no exception. Months later came the album Bedtime Stories. By Madonna standards, the album and singles performed tepidly on the charts. Seemingly, she overcame the horrific bruising of 1992 and re-emerged a force once again in the music world. There is a tragedy in this success however – Madonna beat the critics by coming out with a sexless album, BUT IT WAS MAD BORING!!!!! But this is the kind of thing that Madonna has always done to re-captivate her audience. Flop…succeed…bore…succeed…get laid all over the media…flop…bore…succeed. Madonna became the bobble-head doll for the tragedy-success modus operandi. Never mind the fact that she had to create the calamities herself in order to emerge victorious from them!

So…how does this apply to the real world? In many ways, as with most of my columns, it doesn’t, and you’ve wasted your time again. Another way this does not apply is that there is no glimmer of hope, most of you reading this [and certainly those of us writing this garbage] are sentenced to a life of mediocrity.

The implied meaning, however, is that overcoming adversity is the key to success, not some lavish childhood replete with education and inbreeding. We need the trials of douchebaggery to live something worthwhile…we thrive off those drug and alcohol problems and we are reviled by the Ivy Leaguer who was born the CEO of the family sewage plant. Got blow?