Televised Lithium (Joseph Armstead)

TELEVISED LITHIUM

Communication within the Arena of the Digital Culture.

(The opinions expressed within this article do not reflect the opinions of the Management.  They do not reflect anything at all.  This is not a scholarly treatise.  This is not a rehash of all those countless, dry articles written by well-meaning experts on Visual Anthropology.  This is written by a man with a headache.  So relax.  Watch a commercial.   Have some chips.  Buy a new car.)

Word: jour·nal·ism
Pronunciation: jûr'nuh-liz'-um
Function: noun
a : The collecting, writing, editing, and presenting of news or news articles in newspapers and magazines and in radio and television broadcasts; b : products of the public press, "the fifth estate"; c : writing, recorded media or electronic visual media characterized by a direct presentation of facts or description of events without an attempt at interpretation...

I watch the flickering electronic eye... I think the eye watches back.

Watching the televised talking heads on CNN and MSNBC run through the gamut of daily news, political, economic, medical and industrial, is often a surreal experience, a dance at the door to "trans-reality" where the true news stories are obfuscated, turned inside-out, and insignificant stories become overblown, hyped-up docu-drama.

No Trailer Park So Fierce --- There's the story about the dead celebrity super-model and the legitimacy of her love-child's claim on a disputed family fortune.  A neurotic junkie who danced naked on tabletops had a baby with a rich old codger who died...and then, after working very hard to re-create herself as a guilty pleasure-of-a-trashy-public spectacle, she herself died. The vultures circled.  Why anyone should care is a topic never broached, a glimmer of thought that dies stillborn.

Damaged and Loving It --- There's the musical popstar who may or may not be a pederast.   Or the rock star whose supposedly private sex tapes have wound up on the internet ?  Or is this the story of the actor who publically humiliates his children?  Or is this the one about all the cadaverous fashionistas denying they have eating disorders?  Or is this the tale of the billionaire talk show host and her undeclared religious cult of American suburban housewives?  Or is this about the megalomaniacal real estate tycoon who has decided to become a reality television star and his verbal "feud" with an unfunny, lesbian comedianne-turned-political commentator ?

Penguins in the Rainforest --- There's the anti-debate and blame-laying in the highest corridors of science and industry about the warming of the planet and the dangers thereof.  Someone films a rambling discussion about an inconvenient truth and corporate America desperately seeks a gag order while everyone else turns a earnest, quiet man into a prophet of ecological doom.

Jesus Loves His Kalashnikov --- There's the war against terror, the axis of evil, and the debate as to whether anyone truly understands the web of intrigue, the global sociological implications of and the labyrinth of religious intolerance in the countries of the Middle East.  The history of a region is ignored, the struggles of a civilization at war with itself are marginalized, facts are fabricated, rumors become truth, the truth gets buried out beyond the borders of the propaganda graveyard.

MTV In My Pants --- It's all for the children, everything we do is for the children.  Indeed.   The music, the fashions, the cinema, the video games, the sexual mores, all for the children.  It takes a paranoid, global electronic village to raise an alienated, egocentric, materialistic, violence-addicted child.  And the child hates us for the effort.

Greed is the New Black --- Do you want it, whatever that may be, do you really, really want it?  And how badly?   What are you willing to do to get it?   How far will you debase yourself ... and are you willing to do that, participate in your own denigration, for 13-weeks with like-minded contestants on television?

Infotainment and High Finance, giving the public more bang for their buck.

Everyone seems to dance around the crux of the matter, as if getting to the point is tantamount to a criminal act or, at very least, a sin of heresy.  In a world where "sin" is loosely-defined and mostly situational and interpretive, no one dares call it by its true name...

Ignorance.  Welcome to the Church of the Candid Camera Confessional.

It is frequently presented as a break in scheduled programming, which (said programmed television shows), in themselves, are by definition, a break between attempts to sell you something.   Gotta sell those hemorrhoid medications, gotta sell those automobiles, gotta remind you to buy empty-calorie food that isn't good for you.  Look better, smell better, have better sex through pharmaceutical chemistry.   It, the news, is often presented as Truth.   It masquerades as knowledge.

Hallelujah and pass the Visine: you just can't stop watching.

The electronic eye is no longer a friendly technological innovation bringing news and entertainment into our lives, linking us together as one great multicultural community.  It glares at us with undisguised distaste and disdain and we realize, belatedly, that each night when we shut it off, we see the blank screen has more and more come to resemble the dark tunnel in the barrel of a gun.

We are all in the crosshairs... and there's a disgruntled Ad-man on the grassy knoll.

Comments

[Aurora Antonovic]

This is pretty well written for a man with a headache. :)