Artist now confirmed as “true genius” after dying

The life’s work of painter, artist, novelist and poet Edward Rosterford is being hailed as “irrefutable genius” this week, following his death in a terrible road accident last weekend. He was 34.

Since the news of the artist's tragic passing - which police suspect could have been suicide - tributes have been flooding in from across the world, mourning the “lost master” as “one of the true experts of his trade.”

“Now that he is gone, I can really see the poignant weight of his works," said one fan at the large memorial held in Rosterford's memory. "When he was alive he was a bit of a prick, really, and I never really liked anything about his writing, but I think death is quite becoming of him. I think this new phase is making his works blossom quite nicely in a way that being alive could never really do for him."

The work, which was once branded “useless,worthless trash that only a total moron would ever pay money for” is now being auctioned off, with chief pieces fetching as much as 12 million rand.

"His style is very hot on the market now," said auctioneer and arts expert Maika Sithall-Hupp. "If we look at the central, seminal pieces in his body of work, such as Rain and Gilded Dream, we can see pertinent themes of the artist battling to having his work noticed. Exposure, a series of oil paintings on canvas, shows the evocative disparity and bitter irony of never being paid for one’s art, while suffering from the elements in a shoddy apartment that the portrayed character can’t afford to have heated. In effect, the artist seeks two kinds of warmth: the warmth of love, of recognition, of celebrity for what is most dear to him, and the warmth of a radiator that is keeping him alive in the dead of winter. So we see the visual representation and human embodiment of the cruel play on words of 'Dying for Exposure'."

Other art experts agree.

"Where before his the major pieces of his oeuvre, such as Impassioned Passing and Inner Turmoil were just random colours mashed up and tossed haphazardly onto canvas, this major break-through in his career brings to them a new context of reception," said gallery owner Jake Henderson. "Gone are the blase brush-strokes and careless composition - instead, we see masterpieces that not only define a generation, but could make me very rich indeed with a much lower royalty payout.

These and other stunning works by the late and great Rosterford will be showcased all weekend at the De Bruin's ArtHouse Gallery, alongside the dreary talentless bullshit made by other artists currently still alive.

TV setting unrealistic standards for our children.

The Broadcasting Standards and Complaints Commission of South Africa (BSCCSA) has today issued a scathing indictment of South African digital television service provider DSTV and its aired content, saying that the programs and show content that make up the majority of their viewing schedule are setting “totally unrealistic standards” for the youth of South Africa.

“Just flip on the TV and you’re immediately bombarded by violence and crime or drowned in vapid, celebrity-centred stupidity,” said one concerned parent from the South African Families Association. “It used to be manageable, but now with such a ceaseless flood of these kinds of moronic themes and entertainment values, however will our children even start filling the massive shoes that are being put before them?”

Children everywhere have agreed.

“They’re right,” said ten-year-old Vincent Christians. “Every time I turn on the TV and see Kanye, Jersey Shore or anything on the History Channel, I feel like society expects me to be this ignominious moron who is obsessed with sex and money and fame. I mean, the bar is set pretty low already – I have to write Matric exams, for godssakes – but this is ridiculous. However will I lose my fundamental human respect and dignity and descend into the abhorrent, abyssal chasms of hell from whence these overwhelmingly narcissistic brain-dead fucktards come?”

Girls, too, have shared similar sentiments.

”I’m trying my best,” said teary eyed Jessica Barleson. “I put on makeup and short skirts and try to be as much of a loose skank as possible, but the pressure is incredibly overwhelming. I fear I’ll never become even half the meaningless sex object that society is pushing me to be.”

Meanwhile, the BSCCSA has backed this protest movement 100%, saying children should be exposed to “realistic standards of sex, violence and shallowness”.

”Our young boys across the country couldn’t possibly be this violent or lacking in profundity and reasonable intellect, no matter how much class they skip or how many times they ask bitches to suck their dicks,” the broadcasting standards watchdog said in a statement this morning, “and our nation's sluts and airheads will never be able to stoop to the desperate rape-culture lows that are so widely spread today."

"If we don’t change society so that they can grow up knowing it’s perfectly fine to be only a shallow, self-centred asshole, or just a partially disgusting skank, they risk growing up with all kinds of insecurities and inferiority complexes. We want our children to feel happy saying, 'I'm just a detestable open-legged skank and that's totally alright' or 'I'm only a slightly brain-dead partially sex-obsessed shallow cretin and that's good enough for me.”

However, many parents are fighting the dangerous tide of television influences, and say they are raising their children so that they know they can be whatever kind of narrow-minded stain on humanity they desire.

”I tell our son, ‘my boy, you don’t listen to this TV nonsense. If you feel pressured by society to call a binnet a 'dumb slut whore', it’s perfectly fine to just call her a 'useless bitch',” said Joburg-based father Mike Sogynyst. “I just want to make sure he grows up being true to his own feelings.”

Celebrities unite to raise 0.00001% of their net worth for charity

pic: wikimedia commons

Non-government charity organisations like OxFam and AfriCare have a new contender to deal with in the Save Africa campaign, after dozens of celebrities, signers, actors and politicians combined forces in a super-fund-raiser concert series aimed at raising up to one ten thousandth of a percent of their overall combined worth for African Aid Organisations and charities.

“This is big,” said coordinator of the fund-raising initiative, Bono. “We expect to raise in charity donations almost as much as what we spend in a year on cars and clothes. Every year we make tens of billions of dollars, so it’s just nice to be able to host a concert and make our fans give us almost a fraction of a minute shard of our net worth in ticket sales to give to starving Africans.”

Stars like Miley Cyrus, Justin Bieber, Madonna and Lady Gaga will take to stages across America all throughout this week to raise awareness and millions of dollars, with a portion of that awareness and money going not just to their latest albums but also to a variety of charities.

“I’m just so glad I can do my part,” said amateur wrecking ball operator and pioneer of twerking for white people, Miley Cyrus. “Africa and these kinds of charities have been a huge part of my message and so close to my heart, ever since I learnt where Africa was and also that it isn’t a country nearly two years ago.”

Not all stars, however, were so pleased.

"Those mooching fucks in Somalia have never come to one of my concerts," said voice of our generation Kanye West, "why should I come to their help?"

Even some African citizens have stressed their displeasure.

"Two of our biggest industries are getting lots of money from guilty Europeans and Americans, and all the thousands of dollars we earn making teary-eyed poverty-porn commercials involving distended bellies and crying mothers that we produce for foreign aid companies," said Minister of Film in Southern Sudan, May Kafylm. "If these celebrities solve hunger and poverty, we will actively destroying the only source of income for tens of thousands of families across the Drought Belt."

In any case, in light of these announcements, dozens of recording studios and production companies have announced their unequivocal support of the concerts, saying that they were a wonderful opportunity to raise money for sad-looking black people on TV.

“We care a lot about African countries like Mozambia and Zimbalawi,” they said. “Some people might think that these concerts are just another opportunity to try and humanise our stars who barely even live on this planet or know what a normal life is like, or make them seem more loveable, caring and humane than they really in the eyes of crowds of mindless fans who idolise their every fart, but it isn’t. This is about charity. And giving. And a bunch of other nice-sounding words.”

However, many thousands of starving Africans have reported their happiness after some stars announced that they would be airlifting crates of their latest In Concert DVDS and albums into their countries.

“I love stars and rappers and their struggle songs, like with Drake and his ‘started at the bottom now we here’,” said one Ethiopian man. “Some of these stars lived with a dollar a day in their pockets, maybe eating out of bins and sleeping on concrete, having to go to performance venues night after night to perform and earn a name for themselves. Someday, I wish my children will live in such extreme wealth and leisure like that. Imagine that, actually eating – and out of an American bin!”

Survivor South Africa to be set in South Africa

Fans of survival drama and underused hashtags jumped with joy today, after producers at DSTV and MNet announced their executive decision to set the next overhyped and underwatched season of Survivor South Africa “actually in South Africa.”

“We’ve been thinking about South Africa and the direction the show has been taking in the past few years, and we wanted to make Survivor into the most harsh, difficult and drama-filled show around,” said MNet CEO Ree Peatz. “At first we thought to maybe follow Bear Grylls and set the show somewhere bleak and depressing and very difficult to survive: like the endless desertscape of the Sahara, or the bleak and frozen ardour of the Artic Tundra, or even the Rhodes University Accounting 3 lecture venue – very few survive that place. But then we realised that actually we don't have to go halfway across the world to find such a depressing and difficult environment to put our contenders.”

It soon became clear to them that the best place to set a show that depicts surviving against all odds was actually South Africa.

“For many, many years now South Africa has slowly declined into a perfect environment to shoot a harsh and unforgiving reality show based on surviving against all odds,” said Peatz. “This will make the show more locally relevant, more bold and representative, and also save us a fortune on travel expenses and filming costs.”

The much-anticipated upcoming season, says Peatz, will be set in one of South Africa’s townships.

“In the past, our contenders basically took the equivalent of a three-week all-expenses paid vacation to a lovely tropical beach paradise in the Indian Isles. There, they were guaranteed at least two meals a day, a crude shelter that kept out most of the rain and bugs, clean drinking water, and free, world-class on-site medical attention if anything went wrong,” said Peatz, outlining the show’s shortcomings. “But here, closer to home, thousands of normal South Africans have none of those wonderful relaxations and privileges.”

The show will now have a set of more contemporary challenges and aims.

“They will have to contend with things like low pay, criminal working conditions, awful socioeconomic disparity, increasingly more frequent rising costs of living, widespread crime, an inefficient and overtaxed police service, no healthcare, endless strikes, terrible basic and secondary education, disease, malnutrition, unemployment,” said show organiser Ian Munity. “And in this new show, they won’t be set weekly challenges. We’ll just declare whoever is left alive by the end of the season as the winner. The symbolic act of snuffing out their torch will be replaced by the even more symbolic act of Digging A Hole And Lowering A Box Holding Their Lifeless Corpse Into It Before Burying It and Saying Some Prayers.”

Many South Africans have, however, voiced their displeasure at the decision saying they used to love the escapism and sense of wonderful relaxation the show brought.

“I used to escape my problems by watching a bunch of unknown ‘celebrities’ and douchebags argue on a beach over who said what to who while actually eating a proper meal and not facing the daily dreariness of everyday life in SA,” said one of the seven people who watch the show. “It was nice to be able to get away from it all, you know? To lose yourself in a world of clean water and only slightly shoddy houses, with so little tension between the various colour groups with actual meat to go on your rice. Now i'm going to have to watch real people dealing with real problems - what kind of a reality TV show is that?”

Media analysts now confirm that this is the biggest change of scenery for a reality television show, ever since MNet made the decision to cancel Judge Judy and other similar court dramas and put cameras in front of Oscar Pistorius.