POP PSYCHOLOGY: _Ring in the new year by ditching 2010’s entertainment gimmicks gaffes_

I’ve been a good boy and promised to exercise more, but if I might be so bold, I also have some New Year’s resolutions for our entertainment industry.

While pundits complained last year about President Obama lacking a coherent narrative, I could have been saying the same about pop culture.

With so many people producing so much stuff in so many ways, it’s getting hard to sum things up in one sentence. Pop culture is becoming untweetable ““ not that we aren’t trying.

With that in mind, I volunteer myself to set some guidelines for 2011, so things don’t get too confusing.

First, for Hollywood: let’s stick with two dimensions. Look at “Inception” ““ one of the most visually imaginative movies in years, and nothing came flying out of the screen at our faces. “The Social Network” looked great too, because David Fincher has a knack for playing with shadows, and because the people in it are pretty.

And need I remind you of those disastrous last-minute 3-D conversions “The Clash of the Titans” and “The Last Airbender”? Okay, sure, they grossed $163 million and $131 million respectively, but the critics hated them, and that’s what really matters, right?

At the very least, do it for our health: Nintendo recently issued a warning that its new 3-D gaming device, the 3DS, could be damaging to young people’s eyes. It makes sense, especially considering how long kids play their video games these days; could you imagine how harmful it would be to look at a three-dimensional world all day?

Alright, now on to television: for you guys, I have two requests. First of all, seriously, stop with the reality shows. Kim Kardashian made $6 million in 2010; she can stop now. And whatever anyone tells you, we don’t need more than one show about elaborate cake baking. But most of all, we really don’t need people to compete on television for plastic surgery.

Need I remind you that Heidi Montag is a cautionary tale, not a trendsetter?

And the second thing: please stop cancelling great shows. The new fall season was bad enough, what with Mitch Hurwitz’s catastrophic “Running Wilde” and a whole slew of shows too boring to mention. You didn’t need to go and cancel the smart and wonderfully acted “Terriers,” or the dark and intellectual “Rubicon,” just because no one watched them.

Everyone keeps saying that TV is a better medium than film these days, but if the shows that make that true are watched only by people who write about them in newspapers, well, that doesn’t really count. So this year, everybody turn off “Jersey Shore” and come over to my place for a “Community” viewing party. Actually, better you stay at home and watch to boost those ratings; we can tweet each other about it.

As for music, I appreciate the New Wave revival as much as the next guy, but this year I’d like to see a different kind of ’80s throwback: the return of the rock star. Remember Guns N’ Roses and Def Leppard, Metallica and Slayer? I don’t, because I wasn’t born yet, but the YouTube videos look awesome. All that hair, all that noise, all that attitude.

It’s time someone brought that sense of danger back to popular music. No more over-produced electro-beats, no more Auto-Tune. This will be the year of trashing hotel rooms, doing outrageous things in public and epic, arena rock songs that actually sound like they were made by angry, imperfect human beings.

I appreciate the effort, Kings of Leon, but you need to take things up a notch or three. Axl Rose would’ve eaten you guys alive 20 years ago. He probably still would, but I’m sure he’s hard at work on “Chinese Democracy Part Two.” Everyone needs to watch “Get Him to the Greek” one more time, and take notes. Russell Brand is the best rock star we have right now.

And finally, books: someone invent a green alternative to paper, so we can stop all this e-book nonsense. If I can’t worry about bending the pages of my Kindle, what’s the point? Also, the first critic to call someone “this year’s Jonathan Franzen” is fired.

E-mail your guidelines for the new year to [email protected].