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This story is a few weeks old, but I’ve been cleaning up my RSS feed and I read that Barbara Walters’ 10 Most Fascinating People of 2011 special was down 30% in viewers from the previous year.  Then I looked up who the fascinating people were.  The Kardashians, Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Eric Stonestreet, Simon Cowell, Donald Trump, Derek Jeter, Katy Perry, Pippa Middleton, Herman Cain, Amanda Knox and Steve Jobs.  No wonder.  With apologies to Jeter and the late Steve Jobs, 2011 wasn’t the slightest bit fascinating. 

Steve Jobs was an amazing person.  He was totally fascinating.  But he took medical leave from Apple in January, resigned as CEO in August and then died of pancreatic cancer in October.  That was his 2011.  He’d had better years.  They picked Steve Jobs because he died.  Was Jobs more fascinating than newly-dead people like Muammar Qaddafi or Kim Jong-Il or Osama bin Laden?  Just asking.      

Derek Jeter didn’t hit .300 in 2011.  He didn’t get any MVP votes either.  But he plays for the Yankees and fucks a lot of actresses.  Is that fascinating?  Sure, but he’s kinda been doing that for a while.  He got his 3,000th hit in 2011, but did Baba Wawa come knocking on Craig Biggio’s door in 2007?  Again, just asking.  On the other hand, Justin Verlander threw a no-hitter and won the A.L. Cy Young Award and MVP for a city that needs a hero a little bit more than New York.  He should really think about fucking more actresses.  I know I am.  High five.           

If Jeter is fascinating for being an athlete who fucks chicks, our next selections were apparently chosen for being the chicks athletes fuck.  The Kardashians are not fascinating.  Not unless it’s 1976 and Bruce Jenner just won gold in the decathlon.  Or unless it’s the early ‘80’s when he actually replaced Erik Estrada on ChiPS.  Or not unless it’s 1995 and Robert Kardashian is an attorney in the OJ trial.  But it’s not.  This list is for 2011.  And Kris Jenner wasn’t even married to Robert Kardashian during the OJ trial.  They got divorced in 1990.  So she’s pretty much worthless.  She’s Second-Hand-OJ-Trial Worthless.  I have no use for the rest of them either.  If you’re fascinated by them… well, then you deserve them.     

And I hope Kris Humphries is happy.  According to polls, he’s now the #1 most disliked player in the NBA.  A guy who’s averaged less than 6 points a game for his career is more hated than LeBron James and Kobe Bryant.  All because of his publicity stunt wedding with a Kardashian.  I guess Bruce Jenner was also an American hero on the cover of Wheaties boxes 30 years ago and now he’s a guy with a face like a burn victim and hair like a lesbian tennis player.  Maybe that’s what will make the Kardashians fascinating to me.  Maybe if we finally find out that those three girls are some sort of Armenian succubi for male athletes and Lamar Odom starts growing Satanic Dark Crystal wings out of his back in the middle of a Mavericks game… THEN I will be fascinated.  It’ll be even better if we find out they inherited the curse from their father, who befriended football star and not-yet-a-murderer, OJ Simpson.  Until then, Kim is basically a glorified rap video chick with a bullshit fragrance line.  And the rest of them are just That Chick’s sister.  The most fascinating people in the whole world shouldn’t be relegated to the E! network. 

Pippa Middleton being considered fascinating hurts my brain.  Try to follow.  Prince William is famous for being the son of Princess Diana and Prince Charles and the grandson of Queen Elizabeth II.  They’re all famous through birth, but that’s how royalty works.  Kate Middleton marries Prince William… and somehow her younger sister Pippa gets all the attention.  This woman is a party planner in another country, folks.  It doesn’t make sense.  She’s a little bit royal and a whole lot of who cares.  She’s a British Kardashian without the curves… or the Armenian succubus curse.   

Herman Cain’s selection doesn’t surprise me.  But at this point he feels like such old news that they could have interviewed Michael Steele instead and my brain would have said, “Yeah.  That guy is Herman Cain.” 

Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Eric Stonestreet play gay dudes on Modern Family.  Ferguson is actually gay.  Stonestreet is gay-for-pay.  I’m sure they’re good, but I don’t watch the show so I don’t care.  Give me Bryan Cranston, Trey Parker and Matt Stone or Louis CK.    

I have to admit that I had to look up who Amanda Knox is.  Is she the same person as Casey Anthony?  Did any Yankees shortstops fuck her?  If not, then I don’t care about her either.        

In 2011, Katy Perry was a voice in the Smurfs.  And she had a lot of hit songs from an album that was released in 2010.  Is now a good time to bring up the fact that Adele isn’t on this list?  Or the most-Googled person with the most-watched YouTube video, Rebecca Black?  Or Charlie Sheen?  Or Tim Tebow, David Freese, Aaron Rogers, Abby Wambach, Ryan Gosling, Jay-Z, Kanye West, the Occupy people, the Arab Spring people, Jack Dorsey or Dick Costolo?  None of those people were more fascinating than the gay couple from Modern Family, a girl who DIDN’T murder someone in Italy in 2007 or a voice from the Smurfs who put out an album in NOT-2011?           

Simon Cowell and Donald Trump round out this awful list.  Like, really?  Are they finally getting the respect they deserved from 2004?  Donald Trump said he’d run for President, then he didn’t.  Then he said Barack Obama’s birth certificate is fake, which it’s not.  He could have just saved us the hassle and just said, “Watch the Apprentice.  Sunday nights at 9 on NBC.”  Trump and Cowell are essentially the same person.  Glib self-caricatures with signature buttfuck haircuts and mean little catchphrases.  It’s too bad Anne Robinson from the Weakest Link didn’t stick around.  Then she too could have been fascinating.          

2011 sucked both balls.  But maybe if you’re 82 and you sit on a couch every day talking to middle aged female comedians, an angry Evangelical Christian cutie pie and a dipshit who thinks the world is flat, then everyone seems fascinating.  Can’t wait until December 2012.  If the world doesn’t end, then we’ll get to see more popular recent dead people, athletes who bang chicks, failed politicians, 5th leads on sitcoms, TV personalities who peaked 8 years ago and talentless socialites who are related to people.  Can’t wait.