Felon Freakout: Meeks' Mugshot Monopolised

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Today I decided to share the living room space with my family and relatives. Usually I am rather hesitant because of their horrible choice in television shows, and tonight was a prime example, though Facebook did not provide me with my usual cyber escape route because it led me again to a sense of utter detestment of society. 

Before I delve into why Facebook and its many citizens have betrayed my hope in society, I will touch on why I do not condone what my parents watch. Lebanese television is soiled with faces pumped with Botox and facial features that have been sliced into, never to be the same again. It leads the Lebanese people to believe that artificial beauty is worth more than natural beauty. It leads them to devalue the mind and to value the image, an appalling prioritising of human characteristics. Each time I view a Lebanese show, I internally thank my circumstances for having been born in a country where varied views are accepted and where critical thinking is becoming valued more and more. Having said that, though, Australia outside of the educative sphere mimics that of Lebanon's visual values.

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What I witnessed last night, though, having taken refuge into the cyber space away from Lebanese image constraints, is something far more disgusting than the dire need for physical change and the awful result of Donatella Versace's face shown in the image below - I witnessed the public glorification of a criminal due to his physical appearance. I witnessed the lustrous yearnings of many women and men alike, upon viewing the mugshot of Jeremy Meeks, a criminal who was, previous to this incarceration, locked up for nine years for grand theft. This criminal is now being venerated because he has the desired appearance that Calvin Klein photographers are seeking.

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And it disgusts me. It disgusts me how most of the world's attention goes to people who perform against the greater good, who ethically and morally destroy, who indulge themselves in materialisation and physical exploitation and the exploitation of others and their material objects. It disgusts me how significant role models like Maya Angelou receive less attention from the media than people like this infamous criminal who have performed more bad than good in the world - why do we adulate the wrong people?

'Sexy Felon' and 'Hot Mugshot Guy' are amongst the many headlines the media is using to portray this man. Seek the hashtag '#FelonCrushFriday' and find thousands of posts about how allegedly good looking this man is. His mother has even started her own GoFundMe page in hopes of raising enough money to bust him out of prison, claiming that "he has old tattoos which cause him to be stereotyped". Fools have already contributed to this raising of money, having taken 113 fools and one day to raise $1,825. 

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Here are some comments left behind by some fools along with the amount donated. Please attempt to stop your anger from building up at these comments:

This is utterly ridiculous. Please note that there were three other people caught with him, why are they not glorified? Why are they not receiving money or telephone numbers or marriage proposals or advice to sign up for acting? Why are there no complaints for them being racially targeted? Oh, because they're not "hot"; look at these faces in society and ask yourself, why is the first one preferred?:

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This society disgusts me. In the time that it took for this man's mugshot, his mugshot to become famous, hundreds of more people have died on the street from drive-bys, from criminal intent and from gang violence. Meeks was arrested as part of Operation Ceasefire, a violence-reduction strategy aiming to reduce the amount of firearms within different gang units. 

He was arrested with seven charges:

I wonder - if Elliot Rodger had been this good-looking, and had be been alive after the multiple murders he committed, how would the public react to his situation? Would they attempt to bring racial profiling into the scenario? Would they try to bring mother-and-son or father-and-son based arguments into the scenario? Ted Bundy's mother claimed that he was a "precious boy" and she was in denial about his crimes - but the law proved otherwise. Ted Bundy was good looking too, does that make his sentencing unfair? Society needs to wake up and take a look at what really is important. Our looks are a temporary facade that will wither away.