Ignorant pretension

Numerous awful things are to be met with the the USA which if not offensive because pretentious, are offensive because banal, stupid or sub-adult. It depends on presentation. A thing that is palpably bad doesn't stay bad very long before someone praises it, and this elevates it to BAD, and soon it is celebrated everywhere as highly desirable. BADness is something phoney, clumsy, witless, untalented, vacant, or boring that many Americans can be persuaded is genuine, graceful, bright or fascinating. BAD is strictly a phenomenon of the age of hype, and of course, a special will-to-believe in the audience. To achieve real BAD, you have to have the widest possible gap between what is said about a thing and what the thing actually is, as experienced by bright, disinterested and modest people. Underneath, this is about the publicity enterprise propelling modern life, which seems to make it clear that few today are able independently to estimate the value of anything without prompting from self-interested sources. This means that nothing will thrive unless inflated by hyperbole and gilded with a fine coat of fraud. The Vietnam war is as good an example as any of the way something bad could be made to seem acceptable for quite a while. This is contributing to a way of life that has elevated banality and deception to cultural principles, for if your main business is to sell largely worthless and unnecessary products, mendacity and mediocrity must govern.