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.

The Three Best Friends in a Car

It is currently five degrees Celsius. I came home not long ago, emerging from the warmth of the car after a forty-minute drive through the abandoned streets that ached with the crustiness of the fog.

Just when I thought that I was the only crazy person leaving their house on a day that would end with such a cold night, I was mistaken, for just as I was turning the key in my shop door to enter back into the comfort of warmth, I peered behind me and saw a car that normally is not found parking in front of my shop. It was a small hatchback, and it stood there peculiarly, staring at me as though I were the one out of place. Soon after, three heads within the vehicle momentarily turned around to look at me the same way as well.

Three girls, presumably best friends, discussing a serious issue which needed attention to urgent that it could not wait for a warmer time. They only took a couple of seconds to glance my way and then faced one another, continuing their conversation. I would have paid to have the ability to hear through solid objects. What were they talking about? Were they planning a heist? Were they planning a murder? Had they already murdered someone and had the body in the boot and did not know where to put it?

My mind was racing. I did not know what to think because all my mind could process was murder. It could not imagine a gossip session taking place, that is for the schoolyard. And then it occurred to me – I am probably the only person who would consider three girls to be plotting a murder or a burial. The situation where three girls together automatically assumes itself one of an innocent context, therefore almost immediately ridding a passer-by of the possibility of being murdered by these three seemingly innocent females. What if they have been best friends ever since a young age, and one of them had her heart severely broken, so the three of them, sticking to their childhood pact, decided to murder him tonight?

That just makes the situation worse, and so does the fact that they looked at me accusingly when I looked at them, as though they could hear my thoughts and as though my thoughts were right, each one’s face showing a worse reaction than the former. I could not get into my shop any quicker. I kept imagining turning around after I had opened the door only to find them waiting with large butcher knives in their small, fine hands. In the cold of the night, who else would sit in a small hatchback and plan things other than potential murderers?

One cannot imagine a murderer plotting something evil on a nice sunny day in the middle of a busy car-park, which is why I needed not my imagination to imagine the motives of these three women. Tomorrow, when I hear the news and I hear of a murder carried out by three women in a green hatchback, I will cringe and move countries. I will honestly book the next flight to Turkey, or whatever country that pops up even if I am so foreign that I cannot comprehend their accompanying hand movements when they try to communicate with me. At least those imaginary hands are not holding butcher knives.

And what a perfect night, what a perfect atmosphere, what a perfect scene for my imagination to take control and take hold. It could not have chosen a better moment. I honestly will be sleeping ever so lightly tonight in the event of those three best friends having stumbled upon this and read this.