An Important Announcement Concerning Borat

I've given this a lot of thought, and I think it's time to put a moratorium on quoting Borat. At first, quoting Borat was a hip thing to do--it was underground. It was akin to dating the artsy girl in your high school who painted her nails black and wore Joy Division t-shirts. Only certain people got to do it, and everyone else was confused by it. Then, after the movie became popular, quoting Borat became more mainstream. It was similar to dating that one girl in your high school who was kind of a slut but not demonstrably so--all you knew was that she seemed to have a new boyfriend every semester. I.e., it was still fun, but it was a lot less exclusive. Now, quoting Borat is something that everyone does--it's lost all of its cache. It's like going out with Fat Cheryl, the girl in your high school who was on Prozac and who would give anyone a handjob under the bleacher for 5 dollars and a Slurpee. Do you see what I'm saying? And if the lame-o, khaki-wearing, earring-sporting losers whom I overheard quoting the movie in a restaurant the other day are any indication, the prestige of Borat-quoting is diminishing at an incredibly fast rate. Pop culture quotes are good when they're like fine wine, when they age well and take on meaning and relevance over time. Like, for example, "I'll be back": classic, elegant, and more apropos than ever (obviously). Pop culture quotes are not good when they're like a Big Mac, when they're packaged for mass consumption, when they're seemingly available everywhere, when they're all but shoved down your throat. Let's face it: Borat quotes are dangerously close to Big Mac territory right now. Saying "She is my sister--she is number-four prostitute in whole of Kazakhstan" is on the brink of becoming equivalent to saying "whaaaazup?!" or "who let the dogs out?" or "No soup for you!" In other words, it's not something that you want to be doing. Look, I'm not happy about any of this--I thought Borat was hilarious, and I myself say "Niiice!" quite often. But, this is something that needs to be stopped before it gets any worse. Trust me. I guess I'm just trying to make this world a better place.

And now, a word of warning: if you become militant about not quoting Borat, you're bound to get some friction along the way for not being a team player. If this happens, just use this excuse: say that you refuse to quote the movie because the character of Borat is nothing more than a shallow imitation of the great Balki Bartokomous. That'll shut people up, but quick.

Say, did you know that if you search for "Perfect Strangers" on Imdb, you get 8 different yet seemingly identical results? What the shit?