There is a new disease infecting the world. It started off small, but has now reached epidemic proportions. It does not affect humans, at least, not directly. It affects events. It is called SOSSS (Same Old Sack of Shit Syndrome).

Many of you have probably already experienced attacks of SOSSS by now. Think about when you turn on MTV, or almost any TV channel for that matter. What do you see? the same old sack of shit, day in, day out. You don't need TV guides anymore. You can predict what's going to be on what channel, often before you've even switched the set on. SOSSS is everywhere, and it's not going away. That's not to say there's no cure; there is a cure, it's just nobody wants to cure the disease, because that would involve innovative thinking and usually, that generates less money.

Let's look at some typical examples of SOSSS that you should easily be able to recognise.

First of all, the nightclub/discotheque/rock club venue. Typically these places play 'all the best music', meaning 'all the most popular music'. Now, very often you'll hear a song and thing, yeah, that's good. And so when they play it down the club you think, great, I'll dance to that. And it's fine, until you realise that they're playing the same damned song every single time you're there. People say "But it's a classic." Bollocks. It's old and it's fucking played out. Now, I have nothing against old songs, my favourite band is rather old, but I fucking abhor old songs that have been played to death. By all means, play old songs, but at least play ones that people haven't heard in a while.

I ask the DJ's to play songs I haven't heard in a long time, or songs that I particularly like, are good to dance to and would make a refreshing change. The response I'm usually greeted with is "Oh, people don't know that." So? So what? If I hear a song that sounds good, I dance to it, I don't care if I've never heard it before. The only way people are going to hear new music is if the DJ's play different songs. But that won't happen. Now this sounds like the DJ's are just being crap. Not so. It isn't usually their fault at all. It's the people. People are stupid. The average person wants to hear the same old shit over and over. They don't like change. They don't like to break the routine. And if people hear something new, they think, Shit! Something new and original... er... it sucks! And so they go home, and the venue loses money, and so new and original stuff doesn't get played.

Next up we have computer games. Computer games went through a bit of a golden age during the 80's, when people were coding them in their bedrooms for fun. They sold for about 3 pounds, the most expensive multi-pack games never costing more than about 15 pounds. There were some really inspired games that came out around that time. It was difficult to categorise the games because they were so varied in scope. Then in the mid 90's Sony released the Playstation and everything went to shit. I want you all to go to a video game store and look for a game on the playstation or playstation 2 that isn't a sequel or movie license. Now, of the two or three games that are left, see if you can find a similar game on another system - I don't just mean the same genre, I mean the same game with a different name. It's a virtual guarantee that the PSX version is a total rip-off of the original, but somehow with all the good bits removed. And it will be more expensive.

It's very rare that a truly innovative video game is released these days. The market has been so inundated with sequels that nobody cares about originality anymore. "What should I buy? How about Tomb Raider 9? I heard they updated the graphics so that Lara's pants get damp when she sees a suave bloke." Yeah, great. Sequels are usually complete shit, as they are the same game with improved graphics and sound. People don't seem to realise that Graphics and Sound are entirely secondary to gameplay. Sequels don't usually sell on their own qualities, either. They sell on the qualities of their predecessors. The Final Fantasy Series is a prime example. Why are the sequels called Final Fantasy? They don't take place in the same world, they don't feature the same characters, so why call them Final Fantasy? Because people won't buy them if they have unique names. For example, Final Fantasy 8 sold millions of copies. Xenogears (one of the best video games ever) didn't even get a British release. Why? because people wouldn't recognise the name.

So we have the same problem as before. The developers are not entirely to blame, because people are fucking stupid. If they come up with some truly original, never-been-done-before concept and try and sell it, they'll fall flat. If they come up with a quick rehash of a previous game and call it 'Generic Fighter 2' or something, cha-ching! Easy cash.

In the end, it all adds up to the same two things: Laziness and Greed. People want as much money as possible, so they feed their cheap shit to the masses, who are so fucking lazy that they never want to try anything new.

Welcome to the 21st century, mother fuckers. Here's hoping it ends real soon.