"Tubeland" vs "The World"

"Tubeland" vs "The World"

by CoyotePrime

While offline for the last few days I had a chance to do other things than stare at a computer monitor for hours on end. Reading was instructive and fun, and short trips broke up the day. Then there was the problem of what to watch on television. Considering that we get over 500 television channels, many in High Definition, I thought there might be something of interest there. I’d forgotten why Edward R. Morrow called television “that vast wasteland.” I remember now. Steve Jobs is quoted as saying,”You watch television to turn off your mind; you use a computer to turn it on.” And so it is.

The barrage of Judges; crime dramas; scary prison shows (designed to warn you of your fate if you break the law); police shows (designed to warn you of who will be arresting you if you break the law); helpful psychologists; moronic sitcoms; infomercials; “Big Brother”; “American Idol”; steroid enhanced monsters battling for the mythical wrestling championship “belt”, and hundreds of retardation-inducing eye candy programs is incredible. Add the mind-numbing, hypnotic and subliminal commercials, and you’ve got a truly lethal weapon for destroying critical thinking, creativity, and interpersonal communication skills, which are forbidden by other watchers while “the show” is on. Quality content- thought provoking, informative, educational- seems to be a very rare commodity in TubeLand, since they apparently dumb down show content to appeal to the lowest intellectual common denominator, in order to entertain and amuse the mindless stereotypical “sheeple” folks, dumb as dirt and proud of it.

In their world there is no global warming, no world economic collapse, no exploding human population, no wars, no genocides. Only the wise, fair and comforting rulings of Judge Judy, or Judge Joe, Alex, Maria, and the rest, bringing justice to us all. Why worry about that real world stuff, when “Big Brother” is coming on, and there’s a surprise double eviction? Or Jerry Springer can make us feel good about ourselves by exposing someone even more screwed up than us, if that were possible? What about that latest celebrity scandal, so delicious to savor and cluck about? The nearest competitor to this colossal mind-destruction techno-beast is religion, but that is most definitely another story for another time.

In an increasingly dangerous, often maniacal world, facing nearly unimaginable problems, maybe ignorance truly is bliss. I secretly envy those capable of turning their minds so completely off, wishing so often that, as Bob Seger sang, “I wish I didn’t know now, what I didn’t know then.” But it’s just not possible for me, like the possibly crazy Fox Mulder, to stop learning, searching, even though sometimes I’m not even sure anymore what “the Truth” might be. I’ll know it when I see it. And so, back to the internet, or as I call it, “the World.” A far, far better place than television, I swear... Thanks for stopping by.

- CoyotePrime