UnNews:Survey on apathy cancelled due to lack of interest
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This article is part of UnNews, your source for up-to-the-picosecond misinformation. |
18 February 2008
WHEREVER, USA -- A group of scientists at Yale University recently noticed an increasingly indifferent outlook by many Americans about the future, and life in general. "We thought this was a highly disturbing trend. Well, disturbing might be too strong a word. But we thought it was moderately amusing," said one scientist, "So we figured we'd conduct a survey and investigate this increase in the apathy of the American people."
The scientists first noticed the increasing indifference of Americans in the aftermath of the recent shooting spree at Northern Illinois University. "We noticed that a lot of people didn't seem to care all that much about this horrendous violence," said one scientist. When asked if this indifference to violence bothered him, the scientist said, "Hell no, it doesn't bother me! I personally watched about four seconds of the news coverage on the shootings, then went back to watching Saw 4. That autopsy scene is AWESOME! His stomach just GUSHES!!!"
Despite their deep indifference to what might be causing this indifference, the scientists decided that they should investigate it anyway. "One of our old professors was coming to visit, and even though we didn't really care, we decided to at least make it vaguely look like we were investigating something as opposed to lounging around and playing video games," said one of the scientists.
So they decided to take a survey of the American people in which they'd ask them about their absence of interest in such issues as violence, the raging genocide in Darfur, and other such issues. But the scientists creating the survey encountered problems almost immediately.
"Well, first, in order to print the survey out, I actually had to get off the couch," says the leader of the scientists, "And then I had to drive all the way to the post office to start mailing them around. I started to wonder if it was really worth the effort, and if it would not be better just to spend the rest of my time playing video games and eating potato chips."
However, the scientists finally managed to work up the effort to type, print, photocopy, and mail out several hundred surveys. But their trouble was far from over. "A lot of people we mailed the surveys to didn't bother to open them, and those who did usually didn't mail them back, probably because it would take too much time away from their TV watching. We realized that a lot of people probably don't know what "apathy" means. Hell, some of us scientists don't even know what it means, we just put it on the survey because it sounds scholarly. We considered cleverly disguising the survey as an advertisement...perhaps something like this: FILL OUT OUR SURVEY NOW AND SAVE 35% ON YOUR NEXT PURCHASE AT WAL-MART! But doing that would mean getting off the couch AGAIN, and none of us were really up to it."
And so, the scientists promptly called off their survey on apathy, and went back to watching television and eating Twinkies. When asked if the fact that their survey had failed bothered him, the lead scientist said, "No, not particularly. What would REALLY upset me is if I missed tonight's episode of LOST because of more news coverage on that damn shooting at...uh...whatever college that happened at. I'd rather be entertained than be disturbed by unpleasant facts!"
Many Americans (or at least those Americans who actually care) blame the growing indifference, or at the very least, ignorance, of the American public on a stagnant media that would rather cover sugary human-interest stories and celebrity gossip than actually keep the American public informed. However, as I know that few of you readers (if any of you have actually made it this far into the article) are actually interested in this, I'll stop the article now before you get bored. Next week: EXCLUSIVE PHOTOS OF BRITNEY SPEARS'S PUBIC HAIR!!!
Sources
- Alfred de Montesquiou "*yawn*. Women getting raped while gathering firewood? Gee, that's a shame, I guess.." Yahoo! News, February 18, 2008
- Fox News "OMG, A DIVORCE SETTLEMENT? WHOA!!!" FOX, February 18, 2008!
