We Need More Serious People

(Old man yells at various clouds)

Editor’s note: Sometimes, I feel compelled to share a strongly held opinion. This is one of those times.

I’m starting to think Ms. Rachel might be the last serious person in America. She speaks to toddlers with Mr. Rogers-level kindness and moral clarity about everything from the alphabet to the Gaza crisis.

Gen Z might say that Ms. Rachel “knows the assignment” (undoubtedly the highest young-person compliment available to us olds). But the surprising part isn't Ms. Rachel’s clear competence—it's how few other high-profile Americans bring this basic level of seriousness to their position.

I'm not the only one to notice a chronic lack of seriousness in our culture.

Ted Gioia

wrote about it last year.

In this frivolous new world, everything must be pleasing and inoffensive. Everything and everybody gets marketed like an exciting new product—even old, creepy politicians, or ancient film actors, or 80-year-old rock stars.

Ted's point resonated with me, even though I'm hardly a poster child for seriousness myself. I've spent years professionally avoiding being serious, probably because I’m naturally anxious enough without adding “solve climate change” to my personal to-do list. I’m mostly serious about trying to make people laugh.

But what the hell happened to everyone else? The rest of the world was supposed to take care of itself so that I could peacefully write jokes about giant skeletons.

Look around us. Obviously, no politician is serious anymore. How am I supposed to respect a person who texts me five times per day asking for money? That is the behavior of deranged cousins, not leaders. Politicians are even launching podcasts now, for god’s sake, and podcasting is to seriousness what Katy Perry is to astronauts.

Most of the news media is no longer serious. Walter Cronkite would have eaten his thick-rimmed spectacles before he used the hashtag #Caturday. Fox News anchors show less seriousness than the displays at a Spirit Halloween store. Not that it really matters, of course, since more people get their news from Beanie Baby-related Facebook groups than cable TV.

“Businessmen” are less serious than anyone. Here's a side-by-side image of the world's richest men from 1925 and 2025.

I’m not saying John D. Rockefeller is perfect or anything—the term robber baron suggests some less than scrupulous behavior—but one of these guys looks like he’s about to fund a library, and the other looks like he drunkenly crashed his jet-ski into a public marina. Today’s highest profile business leaders are self-obsessed buffoons.¹

The seriousness vacuum is expanding more quickly than the outer edges of the universe. Today’s famous athletes are often intense, but they're only as serious as their next insurance commercial. Actors have never really been serious, so they won’t help us now (except for maybe George Clooney, who tried his darndest to save the country). I guess some religious leaders are still serious, apart from the criminals and con men. But in general terms, the pickings are slim.

If there’s one thing that symbolizes and perhaps explains our collective slide toward triviality, it’s the influencer. Culture has become an economy, and influencers are middle management. They exist to pass underwear trends from Skims to teenagers to the rest of the world. That makes being an influencer maybe the least serious career a person could possibly have—so naturally, it's the one everybody wants.

We’re a nation running on vibes, memes, and mobile alerts from your bank that you thought you turned off. Maybe over time, podcasts and branded media campaigns will evolve to be sustenance enough for mankind. But until then? Everyone please sit cross-legged in a circle while Ms. Rachel teaches us the basics of a functioning society.

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MORE STRONG OPINIONS

1. This may have always been true, but at least they didn’t used to have personal branding consultants or boner measurement machines.