Category: Social Media

What You See Is Not What You Get!

I recently read a headline on a website whose name starts with an “H” and ends with a “P-O-S-T” (which I won’t name in case they sue me.)  It went something like “Celine Dion’s Shocking Confession” and I thought, “I knew it!  She’s a guy!”  I pointed, clicked and found out that Ms. Dion wasn’t confessing her clever gender scam; she was merely bulimic — or had been at one time, or knew someone else who was or some other such trash.  Obviously, I didn’t finish reading the stupid thing.  It made me mad.  Not because Celine was still a woman but because I’d been sucked in … again.  The headline did not match the story — not even close.  Celebrities confessing some trendy affliction are like lions confessing they like zebras for breakfast; it’s not news.  It’s not shocking!  I don’t stare at my laptop in disbelief and scramble for the Share icon to shotgun the revelation across Facebook’s time/space continuum.  I hit the snooze button and go back to work.  And so it was with poor old Celine.

Celine Dion aside, though, the H***** Post headline is just one example of an unholy trend in our society.  At every turn, we are beaten over the head by what can only be called gross misrepresentation.  We are being led to believe things that simply aren’t there.  The headlines might read “shocking confession” or “startling revelation,” but they never are!  They’re some second rate byte of information that you already know or could have figured out for yourself – if (and it’s a big if) you ever gave it any thought in the first place.  And it’s not just H***** Post; it’s everywhere.  Take a gander at any info/entertainment website.  Three headlines in, you know you’re getting conned.

Or take a look at television teasers, those in-house commercials that are supposed to grab you for the big deal program later on.  They’re always “outrageous” or “you won’t believe” what’s going to happen.  Then, when you get there, there’s nothing to it.  Usually it’s Jennifer, the disposable cash manager (read bank teller) from Portland, Maine whispering (to 6½ million people) that she’s really (like really!) falling in love with the bachelor guy she met three episodes ago.  D’uh — that’s what she’s there for.  This isn’t outrageous (even though, honestly, I kinda do find it hard to believe.)

Either that or they go for the salacious innuendo: “You won’t believe what’s hiding under Khloe’s bed!  Exclusive pictures!” and there’s Khloe, standing there with half a dress falling off.  Then, after the eighteen minute commercial break, you find out it’s a teddy bear with a rose in its teeth, that says “I wuv you,” when you punch him in the stomach.  No wonder Khloe sleeps alone.

Everybody knows sex sells.  The problem is there isn’t any sex – ever — just excited voiceovers telling us there’s going to be some — soon.  It’s like we’re living in a 500 channel high school.  I don’t know how many times I’ve been warned about the “hot” love scene or the “steamy” music video coming up.  Big wow!  Two people chewing on each other like they’re made of Egg McMuffins™ while simultaneously sliding out of exactly half their clothes — as if zippers and buttons haven’t been invented yet.  I mean, really!  That isn’t sex.  Try it sometime!  I guarantee you’ll end up with an inconvenient injury from tugging on each other’s underwear.  It’s not the lack of sex I mind; it’s the gratuitous titillation, the promises made with no attempt at delivery.  It’s exactly like Celine Dion’s shocking confession — that wasn’t.

So what’s the big deal?  After all, P. T. Barnum perfected roping in the rubes a century and a half ago, and there isn’t a State Fair Midway that hasn’t been doing it ever since.  The problem is these days this misdemeanor fraud is everywhere.  Check out the teasers for the news: “Killer cockroaches!  Details at 11:00!”  So you tune in to see what’s going on, and it turns out some scientist in Brazil has discovered cockroaches carry a weird tropical disease that is making the birds sick.  Again I say, big wow!

The fact is, however, this relentless wall of false advertising has created a whole generation that thinks disappointment is the natural order of things.  When everybody’s lying to you, it doesn’t pay to get your hopes up.  Young people don’t believe anything they see, read or hear because it’s been their experience that it’s all a bunch of crap.   Celine Dion doesn’t have a shocking confession; there are no killer cockroaches; and nobody’s going to save the whales.  To young people, the only difference between H***** Post headlines and your average politician is the size of the hustle.  After all, if you’ve been lied to ever since Teddy Ruxpin roamed the earth, what are the chances anybody is telling the truth?  Not much.  Listen closely and you’ll find out that most young people believe that if, by some miracle, there are modern day saints, they’re really just sinners with good PR.

The unfortunate thing, however, is once this pessimism starts creeping into our psyche, it’ll be almost impossible to get out.  The long term consequence?  I don’t know, but disillusioned is a disease, and it’s only going to spread.

The Mythology of Poverty

Whoever said “There’s honour among thieves” obviously hadn’t met many thieves.  This is one of those modern day truisms that simply isn’t true.  Thieves steal things; that’s their job.  When there’s no one else about, they will steal from each other.  Haven’t you ever seen The Sting?  Our world is chock full of these pseudo aphorisms — all widely accepted and all utter crap.  For the most part, they’re harmless, even cute.  But lately they’ve been creeping into our fundamental thinking, causing trouble, distorting our ability to handle problems.

For example, “Honour among thieves” suggests that there’s some kind of a Rogue’s Code out there that governs the little bastard who stole your iPhone™.  There isn’t!  He doesn’t belong to a fleet-footed fraternity of contemporary Robin Hoods, dedicated to redistributing technology to the less fortunate.  The only creed he lives by is economics – straight up and down.  He stole your phone for money: that’s it!  We attribute a modicum of honour to his profession because most of us simply can’t fathom an ordinary person following a moral compass that has no dial.  However, the reality is the gentleman thief is a fiction, created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s brother-in-law to amuse his Victorian friends.  Unfortunately, it has somehow gotten stuck to our psyche, with disastrous results.  And it’s not the only one.  There are others way more serious.

There is a general misunderstanding that poor people have a moral leg up on the rest of us.  It is widely believed that if you are struggling to make ends meet, you’re absolutely bursting with integrity.  Not only that, but if, for whatever reason, you jump off the moral balance beam, the assumption is you were forced into it by an unforgiving society.  Let me set the record straight.  People who take the early bus to menial, minimum wage (or below) jobs do not necessarily have either honesty or empathy hardwired into their DNA.  Yes, they are working hard and, quite probably, getting the shaft on a daily basis, but I doubt very much that moral intrepidity is based on an unfavourable income tax bracket.  The “Poor but honest” stories we all grew up on are wonderful tales for children.  However, unless you’re seriously into economic profiling, there’s no reason to believe that poor people are any less corruptible than your average middle-class, 80K-a-year systems technician (No offence, systems technicians!)

And while we’re at it, the other prevailing myth about poor people is they all want to live together.  There is an unshakable belief among NGOs, city planners and politicians, that the cure for homelessness, slumlords and squalor is social housing (sometimes euphemized as affordable housing.)  Surprisingly, this legend is still with us, even after half a century of building gigantic, high and low rise concrete bunkers to warehouse the poor.  These urban battle zones are low rent Mogadishus and probably contribute as much to our low income social problems as cheap, hardcore drugs.  The real head scratcher, however, is the biggest proponents of social housing all live in tidy little neighbourhoods with painted fences, dogs on leashes and manicured lawns.  Either that, or they’re in gabled condo communities with assigned underground parking and more security than the Green Zone in Bagdad.  Is it just me, or is the disconnect here so wide you could sail the USS Abe Lincoln through it?

These are just two examples of truisms about poverty that just aren’t true.  There are piles more.  Think about it.  Poverty is not one homogenous entity.  It covers a huge area of land and has millions of people in it.  It’s also a relative term.  Poor in Detroit is quite a bit different from poor in Seattle.  The below average family in Biloxi has more in common with their wealthier neighbours than they do a statistically similar family in Newark.  Yet, we continue to think, talk and act as though poverty were a one-size-fits-all affliction you throw money at.

Furthermore, some of those most willing to perpetuate these myths are those socially and politically active people who are walking examples of exactly what I’m talking about.  Ever since Bob Geldof couldn’t figure out what to do with Tuesday, wealthy activists have been making a part-time profession out of poverty management.  Sometimes, they’re celebrities but mostly they’re just people with money and time on their hands.  Unfortunately, extended amounts of leisure do not qualify anybody to dabble in economics, education, social or urban planning.  Their opinions are no more valid then the local drycleaner.  In fact, the very success that gave them this free time is actually a detriment to their thinking.  For the most part, they are isolated from the real world and some have become so cocooned they wouldn’t know how to cope with reality (poverty-stricken or otherwise) if it bit them on the bum.  I’m sure these people truly care, but that doesn’t mean they know what they’re talking about.  Sympathetic does not equal smart.  That’s just another truism that isn’t.

Our society has some serious problems, and most of us sincerely want to fix them.  Unfortunately, we’re never going to come close to solving any of them as long as we keep taking mythology as our starting point.

How Good TV Goes Bad!

Apparently, the Fox Network is going to cancel House.  I have never seen the show.  No, I’m not a television snob who only watches PBS, nor do I have a philosophical disagreement with scripted TV.  I just didn’t watch it in the beginning, couldn’t figure it out in the middle and wasn’t willing to give it any time after it had passed its prime.  Over the years, literally thousands of TV shows have slipped past me this way.  By the time my friends convince me that the drama is riveting or the comedy hilarious, the program is two or three seasons deep and already going stale.  I usually tune in just in time to catch nothing more than saggy dialogue, lame insults and baggy clichés.  Sometimes, I go back and find a program’s broadcast youth in hit-and-miss syndication, but mostly I don’t, and I doubt if I will with House.  Grumpy medical people haven’t intrigued me since Doctor Gillespie.  Anyway, House was born, lived and is now going to die without us ever becoming friends…oh, well!  It had a good life.

Actually, House is an exception: most television programs don’t have a good life.  If they are bad, they die young.  If they’re good and nobody watches them, they die young.  If they are bad and tons of people watch them, they’re still bad and become a running joke (a la Gilligan’s Island.)  Plus, everybody from the executive producer down to the teenage viewer spends the rest of their lives trying to live down their association with that piece of trash.  However, the worst thing that can ever happen to a television show is that it’s good and tons of people watch it.  Only the very best programs can survive that kind of success, and most of them don’t.

Aside from a few excellent aberrations, really good TV is based on character and writing.  All you have to do is look at the CSI franchise to figure that out, and while Miami Vice kinda needed Miami, it could have just as easily have been Malibu or New Orleans.  This is the way it’s always been, since the dawn of television.  Even way back in black and white days, 77 Sunset Strip and Hawaiian Eye weren’t that much different, and everybody knows that Star Trek was just Wagon Train with short skirts and phasers.  Good characters make good TV, and good writing makes good characters.  However, this is also exactly what makes good TV go so horribly bad.

In the world of television, professional writers pour miles of work (and paper!) into creating characters.  They put them into storylines that let them shine and give them clever things to say.  The sole purpose of this is to make these characters interesting enough that we, the audience, come back next week to see them again.  It’s a hit-and-miss proposition, but when it works, a television show becomes successful.   The characters become our television friends — witty, sexy, smart, comical, caring or just plain cool – in short, everything we wish our real friends were but never are.  After all, who would you rather have a drink with, Lucy, the smart chick from Alcatraz or your idiot sister-in-law?  No contest!

Unfortunately, this is also the problem: once these imaginary people become our friends, nobody wants to get rid of them.  The producers, directors and technical crowd — right down to the guy who pours the orange juice — have a good gig going.  They’re not going to kill the goose that’s laying the golden eggs.  Furthermore, the advertisers don’t care if we’re watching dancing Bavarian mud monkeys — as long as the audience numbers are up.  And the writers will sell their own mothers before they start the whole process over again.  After all, it probably took them ten years to sell this idea.  So the characters keep hanging around, long after the professional writers (who mostly suffer from acute, undiagnosed ADD, anyway) have run out of imagination.  The stories go flat and repetitive.  (How many ways can everybody love Raymond, for God’s sake?)  They generally outlast themselves by two, three or five years and keep staggering along, like wheezing pensioners looking for the Rest Home.  Either that, or the writers, sensing imminent unemployment, go nuts and call in the aliens or reinvent someone’s parent as a gratuitous celebrity to eke out another season or two.  And that’s how most good TV shows die, shadows of their former selves, alone and abandoned by everyone (often, even the original cast) only the most loyal fans remaining.  As old friends will, we sometimes come back for the last episode, like hangers-on at a funeral, but mostly we’ve gone on to other things enthralled by our new friends who are young and exciting.

Now that I think about it, maybe it’s too bad I missed House completely.  From the looks of things, it was probably an intelligent, interesting program.  After all, the producers were smart enough to retire the old boy before he was literally on his last legs.