6.13.2007
Crap Osmosis
By Stan Spire (C) 2007
Despite my protective mental membrane, crap molecules still seep in.
I don't have cable or satellite TeeVee. And with the few stations I pick up off the air, I don't watch that much. I avoid looking at entertainment rags. I seek out only real news on the Web.
But somehow trivial info slips through. I've never watched the TeeVee show American Idol, but I am familiar with the judges' names and even the names of certain contestants. A lot of buzz is generated about a wannabe pop star and the lamestream media is obligated to play up the story over real events.
Flip through the late night TeeVee talk shows and every host has to bring up the contestant's name and the vapid buzz accompanying it. Even the losers are brought out on these shows, their fifteen-minute fame serviceable for lame comedy bits.
At least such contestants project a positive image. "News" is created when image of a young female movie star or pseudo-celebrity becomes negative. Drugs. Alcoholism. Sex scandals. Arrests. Even jail time. All the news outlets and talk show monologists treat such incidents as major news. They aren't. They're just crap.
But the pop media gives the public at large what it wants. After all, learning about the controversy surrounding the present US Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, ain't fun. Or even funny. Even though Gonzales has a direct effect on the lives of average Americans, John and Jane Q. Pubic would rather follow the story of a spoiled rich bitch going to jail, even though she doesn't have the power to screw up their existence.
The crap: it can't be avoided it when it's spread everywhere. It's in your face even during the briefest exposures to the media. You would have to blind yourself off to every headline or blurb. And by doing so, you also shut out important information and news.
The latest fads and crazes aren't news. In the end the buzz dies away, revealing the pseudo-event behind it to be what it was all along: meaningless crap. Time will prove how right I am.
Historians, 40 years in the future: do insignificant molecules named Sanjah or Paula Abdul or Lindsay Lohan mean anything to you? I didn't think so.
# posted by Stan Spire @ 12:26 AM 
