Dawn of the dumb: Dispatches from the idiotic frontline is basically an introduction to the hilariously angry rantings of one Charlton “Charlie” Brooker. Taken from his “recent TV writing” in the Guardian, it is a collection of his funniest musings on television and beyond.
The pieces can be split up into either articles from his television review column Screen burn or other random articles published in the Guardian’s G2 magazine. With cutting whit, profane distain for anything remotely moronic and a clever turn of phrase, Charlie Brooker’s Dawn of the dumb is as much about appropriate reactions to stupidity in general as it is about the actual details of the stupidity that Charlie sees in television, politics and celebrities.
However, the most endearing aspect of the collection of articles is the amount of introspection that Brooker brings to his writing. Over the course of the book you find out a lot about Charlie’s neuroses, including his struggle with social interaction and small talk and his inability take his finances seriously, both of which I can empathise with.
With death threats from crazed US zealots, Charlie Brooker holds nothing back. When he encounters something inane, whether it’s a Big Brother contestant or David Cameron, he can’t help but fire at it with all guns blazing (unlike his point and click war game skills) and who can blame him. There is too much stupidity in the world. It’s everywhere and apparently in everyone I come across; coursing through the veins of television programmes and dominating the goldfish intelligence of the modern music world. In fact that’s unfair, I’ve seen goldfish excrement with more intelligence than the average X Factor song release.
Anyway, thankfully we have Charlie Brooker putting the world to rights in Dawn of the dumb. Not in a sanctimonious, Jamie “eat yer fookin’ greens” Oliver, holier than thou way, but with insight, anger and bile. The way indignation is supposed to be.
Charlie Brooker, Dawn of the Dumb review: 4.5/5
