An outcast in your own lounge-room.
Asian bird-flu; sure theres been a lot of talk, a bit of hysteria; even, some hoopla. But lets get serious, how many people has it life-alteringly affected world-wide? Aside from chicken farmers that is.
The worst 21st century pandemic to slime its insidious way into our lives has got to be reality television. It is totally resistant to medicine, quarantine and surgery; lobotomy excluded. However one could argue thats a case of curing a terminal disease by euthanasia.
The premise of television and entertainment, I have been led to believe, is based up providing audiences with fantasy or romanticized visions of life. Entertaining them through escapism and suspension of disbelief to ultimately distract them from the monotony of mundane life. Beautiful people, exotic locations and fantastical happenings.
Now, the latest craze seems to be; turn on the custard & jelly* to watch a house full of strangers going about their daily routine. Its seems after a long day of ordinary life, we like to come home, flip on the television and watch. life.
Big Brother is possibly the greatest blow to your self esteem or status as a member of society or even a member of a clik, or niche. Even your place on the fringe is made haggard by Big Brother. Why you may ask?
Theyre so cool.
Think back to high school; most of us (excluding the painfully popular and terminally trendy amongst us may your childrens pets die young) at some point found ourselves at the back of the pack, the edge of the group, left out of the conversation or sitting at the farthest away table. You were an outcast.
Your couch is the farthest table.
We watch gleefully the edited wit, tantrums, philosophies, ranting and interludes of ordinary extroverts. We wonder what will they say next; who will they backstab this week; does he like her like she likes him; will she ever shower without that damned bikini?
The suspense, the drama, the reality, it just becomes all to much. You laugh, sympathize and argue with them; but it doesnt matter. Because youre not part of this conversation.
Youre the dorky kid nobody wants to notice. The weird kid that collects things in his oversized pencil-case. The fat kid with the failing elastic on his pants that people change class schedules to avoid because they know at some point youre going to come too close to them. At some point youre going sully their coolness with your stench of social autism. A stench that still remains long after your stared down and you shuffle away with the top of your arse-cleavage poking out of your hand-me-down track-suit pants.
The reality of reality TV is, you survived the jungle of adolescence all the time honing a social skill-set, you survived the counterpoints of your clik and danced along the popularity razors edge by not burning too brightly, yet not fading away to fall off the fringe only to be eaten by the hordes of elastically challenged fat kids with oversized pencil-cases.; only to live out that very role on your couch.
When the Captain of the good ship Whatever-the-hell, is faced with the life and death decision thatll see his beloved crew or an entire planet be obliterated I can recognize that this is somewhat outside of my expertise and experience. I then sit back and say, Id best leave this one for the captain. I walk away from it knowing that although I may not be a master of interstellar diplomacy, I at least can form a cogent and balanced argument on the distribution of wealth in relation to how much of this weeks grocery budget should go on food and how much on alcohol.
However, it seems every time one of these sad indictments on public education opens their mouth Im held prisoner by their inanity. My instinct to preserve the genealogy of the species fuels my compulsion to either seek to help strengthen that feeble mind or, and most often, to spay the oxygen thieving cunt to make sure they dont further dilute our bloodlines.
Why not just change the channel if you dont like?, you may ask. Simple. Its on every fucking channel, every fucking year. In fact, Ive got to go, its on in a minute
*telly Television.
Asian bird-flu; sure theres been a lot of talk, a bit of hysteria; even, some hoopla. But lets get serious, how many people has it life-alteringly affected world-wide? Aside from chicken farmers that is.
The worst 21st century pandemic to slime its insidious way into our lives has got to be reality television. It is totally resistant to medicine, quarantine and surgery; lobotomy excluded. However one could argue thats a case of curing a terminal disease by euthanasia.
The premise of television and entertainment, I have been led to believe, is based up providing audiences with fantasy or romanticized visions of life. Entertaining them through escapism and suspension of disbelief to ultimately distract them from the monotony of mundane life. Beautiful people, exotic locations and fantastical happenings.
Now, the latest craze seems to be; turn on the custard & jelly* to watch a house full of strangers going about their daily routine. Its seems after a long day of ordinary life, we like to come home, flip on the television and watch. life.
Big Brother is possibly the greatest blow to your self esteem or status as a member of society or even a member of a clik, or niche. Even your place on the fringe is made haggard by Big Brother. Why you may ask?
Theyre so cool.
Think back to high school; most of us (excluding the painfully popular and terminally trendy amongst us may your childrens pets die young) at some point found ourselves at the back of the pack, the edge of the group, left out of the conversation or sitting at the farthest away table. You were an outcast.
Your couch is the farthest table.
We watch gleefully the edited wit, tantrums, philosophies, ranting and interludes of ordinary extroverts. We wonder what will they say next; who will they backstab this week; does he like her like she likes him; will she ever shower without that damned bikini?
The suspense, the drama, the reality, it just becomes all to much. You laugh, sympathize and argue with them; but it doesnt matter. Because youre not part of this conversation.
Youre the dorky kid nobody wants to notice. The weird kid that collects things in his oversized pencil-case. The fat kid with the failing elastic on his pants that people change class schedules to avoid because they know at some point youre going to come too close to them. At some point youre going sully their coolness with your stench of social autism. A stench that still remains long after your stared down and you shuffle away with the top of your arse-cleavage poking out of your hand-me-down track-suit pants.
The reality of reality TV is, you survived the jungle of adolescence all the time honing a social skill-set, you survived the counterpoints of your clik and danced along the popularity razors edge by not burning too brightly, yet not fading away to fall off the fringe only to be eaten by the hordes of elastically challenged fat kids with oversized pencil-cases.; only to live out that very role on your couch.
When the Captain of the good ship Whatever-the-hell, is faced with the life and death decision thatll see his beloved crew or an entire planet be obliterated I can recognize that this is somewhat outside of my expertise and experience. I then sit back and say, Id best leave this one for the captain. I walk away from it knowing that although I may not be a master of interstellar diplomacy, I at least can form a cogent and balanced argument on the distribution of wealth in relation to how much of this weeks grocery budget should go on food and how much on alcohol.
However, it seems every time one of these sad indictments on public education opens their mouth Im held prisoner by their inanity. My instinct to preserve the genealogy of the species fuels my compulsion to either seek to help strengthen that feeble mind or, and most often, to spay the oxygen thieving cunt to make sure they dont further dilute our bloodlines.
Why not just change the channel if you dont like?, you may ask. Simple. Its on every fucking channel, every fucking year. In fact, Ive got to go, its on in a minute
*telly Television.
alyk:
I actually read every word of this journal entry, but unfortunately Big Brother is not an American thing, so I have nothing interesting to add. Sorry, sir.