John Mayer's Controversial Playboy Interview: David Loftus

John Mayer is yet another pop personality with whom I was utterly unfamiliar until today, so it’s hard for me to get worked up about whether his career is hot or on the rocks. I did a little Google searching and learned that aside from his music, in the past he’s made something of a name for himself by saying outlandish things in comedy clubs and on Twitter, where his fan following of 3 million puts him in the ranks of Ashton Kutcher and Britney Spears -- two other megastar/midi-talents who have never given me much reason to care about them.

I’m not personally annoyed by his racial and homosexual slurs, because it’s all so tiresomely familiar. At one time I might have said such blather brands Mayer as lacking taste and judgment. Now I’d say he’s just unoriginal -- going to the same hot buttons as every other kid who thought he was not only flavor of the month but built to last. He’s trying too hard to be cool, rather than actually being cool, and therefore he doesn’t even attain the level of intellectual and aesthetic lightweight. (What does surprise me is that someone I thought possessed half a brain, namely Aniston, ever had anything to do with a nitwit like this.)

Since I had no opinion about Mayer to begin with, I can’t say it has changed. The only way my opinion could improve from zero is if Mayer pursues his craft long enough to create a body of work worth listening to for more than a season. I doubt the interview will damage his career, since I would imagine that has largely been supported by youth who don’t know enough history to find Mayer’s slurs particularly notable, whose cultural attention deficit disorder won’t enable them to recall this incident within the next year, and who lack the discrimination to condemn lapses in taste. This is just another non-story.