By Sasha Styles
At the time of this reading I'm looking at an interesting counter culture type picture. On it is a woman with 1950s glasses and a hypno-swirl, bellow her a television with the same swirl is present. The caption reads "WHY DO YOU THINK THEY CALL IT PROGRAMMING?". It's very, sadly, true. Many people fall victim to a very wicked form of brainwashing, and never notice. Now before you stop readin and turn away thinking it's stupid to bash America's opiate take some things into consideration. First but not foremost it's an obvious plug for non-sustainable consumerism. Fall prey to that and in a matter of decades it's you who will be prey to the factory owners. Second, pay attention to the messages that are conveyed, these 'realistic' unreal dramas and sitcoms. Third notice that when your in front of the tube, you aren't out conversing with your fellow man and living your own lives. That kind of ties into reasoning number two, yes, but it's seperate in a sense as well. To go into detail I think I will start explaining the first point.
Commercials can be wicked. In marketing classes they teach what appeals to people. Besides just pelting the brain with the message of buy, buy, buy consumerism (which is especially dangerous to young children) it also sends out detrimental societal messages. For one thing no sole proprieterships and co-ops can afford to advertise, this will be touched on in the economics chapter. The other serious aspect is that they perform neo-magic. The mind is studied, id appeal (also used in programming) is applied, and advertisements with round headed scantily clad dolls appeal to little girls�, even more scantily clad women jumping on men for his cologne, and thin ('prettier') than the girl next door type women have friendly chats while downing Mc Donalds, come to be displayed as reversed cause and effect idioms. They pretend it's attainable, that if you do as they say the results will occur.
Now while the rational mind might notice in passing and shrug it off, the obliviousness most have when watching this allows this faux chain of events to be taken to the id and stored in the subconcious as a possible path of attaining what one desires, or worse in some cases, the reverse. By reverse I mean your little 5 year old daughter's have a natural prefrence for round feminine things that remind them of their mothers on a subconcious level. This has been mentioned in numerous articles online. When these girls get the scantily clad shallowness equals m,other equation pressed into their minds without taking note or rationalizing, this can become a very detrimental formula. When their biological clocks tick in that very long, often repeated chain of memories regarding that will come to the front of their subconcious, and that's what the 'tweens' will emulate. This trend is already observable, in the 80s they showed Jem and the Holograms, Sailor Moon, and other shows with scantily clad, ditzy women and girls, in bad relationships, relying on men in an unrealistic sense. Male children had GI Joe and other beligerent men as role models in a situation where it has the good and bad guys clearly defined unrealistic. This is a dangerous trend, predated in gladiator pits, public beheadings, and feudalism. Now gang violence is up, and men go off to war and are willing to kill children, if the government says so. The mind is built on experience and interpretation. When there is alot of repeated imagery of the same plot line going on in front of your eyes for years, and instead of attempting interpretation, you merely sit back and try to get into the scene, to live vicariously, you share the experience and that is what you learn. Some people choose to think about the messages, to analyze. These people are the ones that become blessed with a higher rationality.
Look at how relationships are portrayed on television shows. Are there any female role models for the prepubescent to adult age range that actually display rationality, loyalty to friends, interest in any serious subject (besides EMT and legal shows, which are full of needless drama and people displaying poor relationship skills), and self respect? One Tree Hill is full of examples of poor relationship skills, promiscuity, and dysfunctional families. The girls make fashion design to mean making t-shirts with slogans like "Ho's before Bro's", and the girl that does this is meant to be a role model. The other female main character sleeps with the prementioned girl's boyfriend, after first having sex with his brother. Countless shows have that type of mentality. Now think about this, when the brain sees people it thinks are beautiful, the neuro-award pathway (the part of the brain that rewards behavior, activated by drugs, laughter, and exercise among other things) is activated. This fact is verifiable by scientific studies that can be googled for further understanding, and I suggest you do. When the award pathway is activated by 'TV stars' behaving poorly the brain makes a connection of being in needlessly dramatic relationships, being assinine to your friends and loved ones, and being vapid and shallow, to being behavior to emulate. This is very dangerous to social relations, yet at the same time it acts as a distraction. This is important to note. When people are distracted with senseless relationship issues (herding instinct of the id makes this important) they are less likely to work together to fulfill goals. They are less likely to make serious goals for themselves to persue. This distraction is part of what keeps humanity from fulfilling potential, from living their lives, from actually making use of the herding instinct like nature intended. In nature the whole herd or pack works towards the common good. In humanity this can be seen as a group of friends and familiy for mental and moral support, and for aiding each other in accomplishing goals. In a dysfunctional friendship, this does not occur. But the newly warped brain will make an equation with glamor, and thus continue where it would not have logically in a free and informed society. Not all are victims to this, but quite a few people I have seen are. Some sitcoms are guilty of this as well, but they have something a bit more serious to take note of as well.
As previously mentioned laughter stimulates the neuroaward pathway, combine this with some dark socially disruptive and mysogynistic humor, and there is serious danger. Familiy Guy is especially guilty of this. Now before you boo and hiss, think, how many rape jokes have you heard on that show. To cause a self concious connection of reward and rape is pretty diabolical isn't it? Once again scientific studies can be found to support this. This is aiding in supporting mysogyny, which is something that should be defied, not endorsed. Also important to note is humor that stabs at the ecology, such as South Parks episode regarding hybrid cars. They villify people wanting to be enviornmentally concious. They've done similar with important political issues as well. Southpark has actually influenced peoples political views. Jon Stewart and the Stephen Colbert do as well. The sad thing is they make what evil the government (at the time of this writing) does laughable, and therefore REWARDED subconciously. Now many people applaud Colbert and Stewart for pointing out the political ills this nation has been up to, but the subconcious it's laughable aspect remains. Now people become desensitized, and only learn the surface aspects of what they do, while leaving the real evils untouched on. The people, having learned a bit of this think themselves educated and hey, Jon Stewarts a nice guy right? He wouldn't make light of something seriously wicked would he? Look at current comedy friends.
You'll see the dark trend is very real, and if you do not believe me, ask friends what they feel about these shows. Listen to the jokes they tell and see if they take important issues seriously. See if they tell mysogynstic jokes themselves, then see how serious they take real rape, see how serious they take real political issues, see how serious they take the enviornmental issues facing us today. I've seen seriously funny humor before, and it's not televised.
If you want a little at home entertainment might I suggest checking out the multitude of idependant sketch comdey artists, cartoonists, and other film/series artists that are online. Why follow these pampered celebrities and support their lifestyles when they do not support you? Why not support one another so that all have a chance to be local, even world wide (with the internet) celebrities? How much more fun would that be, to have the chance to participate in these films and sketches, then exchange them with firends? Perhaps even burn DVDs of them and sell them to one another on websites. This is a feasible solution if you really feel the urge for televisionesque entertainment. I put emphasis on this for a serious reason, people networking can accomplish alot more, and aid one another to better themselves and their living situations, which equates to a more empowered populous, something those currently in control do not want. Just about every TV station is owned by one of 8 companies any way, and our best interest is not their best interest. Predators need prey. Wealthy need poor. It's a chain of victimization, and while you watch their networks, are pelted with commercials from wealthy owned companies, and supporting anti-social behavior amongst you and your peers, they rake in the profits. In more ways then one. This can be changed, after all, some of these sketch comedy artists online could really make a profit selling commercials at a reasonable price to soleproprieterships and co-ops, and in exchange the sole-proprieterships and co-ops could carry their DVDs in trade. Suddenly media would be massively more varied, and individual artists would be far better off, supporting people on the same socio-economical scale as themselves. This ties in to community issues, which is really part of where television is a useful tool of evil. As already implied when you sit down and watch TV you aren't experiencing life, your watchiung others instead. The less people inside watching TV, the more people outside walking around, looking for another form of entertainment like, hmmm, conversation? You could even learn real news this way, like by mentioning to friends to check out gnn.com, and see what news sources and entertaining websites they know of. The news is obviously biased on televison, but that's for another chapter.