Rant Against the Media

I have a problem with television. I’ll try not to sugarcoat this. I think it degrades art and rots minds. I don’t really know how long it was before I realized I was hearing canned laughter and applause during a TV show that I used to watch, the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Many people still don’t notice it. Many people don’t notice the background music in commercials, or how only beautiful people can sell products. Have you ever seen a host on MTV that wasn’t gorgeous and garbed in the latest fashion trends? How many channels of television does the average person have access to today? How many teams of people and production crews go into each thirty second commercial seen during a two hour session of television, all of them trying their very hardest to convince you to buy a product, or think a certain way? How many different tracks of music do we hear during that two hours? How many different famous people do we see, or deep-voiced narrators do we hear? How many lines of fine print do we ignore? What is the average rate of scene changing during commercials? What is our attention span? By simply watching television, we are bombarded by a gross overproduction of media - it’s like aiming a fire hose at a teacup. I don’t think anyone could consciously want to be bombarded with so much.

here is an excerpt from a Rage Against the Machine (one of my favorite bands to ever exist) that I think describes some of the same things.

Cinema, simulated life, ill drama
Fourth Reich culture - Americana
Chained to the dream they got you searchin for
The thin line between entertainment and war

I won't post the entire song, but if you would like to look it up, the name is "No Shelter" and the band is "Rage Against the Machine." it may have explicit lyrics.