When did the media first start this crazy thing they do now where they talk for hours and hours about absolutely nothing, and everybody watches it anyway? They have one piece of information and 3 hours to fill, so they keep replaying the same footage over and over, they have the anchor interviewing other JOURNALISTS, they beat this one fact (or sometimes it’s just innuendo!) to death until there’s literally nothing left to discuss and still they don’t stop… when did this phenomenon start? And WHY am I so addicted to it?!
They did it with 9/11. They did it with Princess Diana’s death. They did it with the OJ SImpson trial. They did it with the Challenger explosion. Did it happen before this? Did they do it for the royal wedding of Princess Diana and Prince Charles? What about Mount Saint Helens? I remember back in 1977 the nonstop footage about Elvis’ death and I was just a very small child. What about in 1968 with the assassinations of Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.? Maybe it started with the first moon walk or John F. Kennedy getting assassinated.
Perhaps the media has always gone overboard when it came to big stories, but I don’t remember when it crossed over into the mainstream. This happens weekly now. Just look at hurricane coverage, for example. Broadcasters are like vultures circling, eagerly hoping for a horrific tragedy so they can get good ratings. When the storms pass by without incident those same reporters can barely mask their disappointment–which is sickening when it’s YOUR house and family that have been spared by a near miss.
Maybe this craziness did start with the OJ trial. That was a spectacle without end, it seemed, and it changed some things in this country forever (and not for the good!). Sigh. Why am I pondering this, you might ask? Well…
I’m BORED. I’ve got that post-Christmas let-down thing going on here. Where’s my drama? Where are my talking heads endlessly prattling on and on and on? Where are the ridiculous captions running along the bottom of the screen (Frank. South Florida gay.) Here’s a cartoon I wrote a few years ago about this very phenomenon, and it describes how I’m feeling right now pretty well.
Originally ran on 1/30/05
Obama’s good for this country, but he won’t become the actual president until January. Until that time, I, for one, am ready and willing to be distracted. Find me a sob story–I need my fix!
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November 6, 2008 at 1:28 am
Kate
Don Henley wrote a song describing exactly what you’re talking about: Dirty Laundry. Americans love it. There’s nothing like a good trainwreck to take your mind of what ails ya!
You want a sob story? How about my 2.5 year old’s upcoming surgery that is predicted to paralyze his leg? I know, I know, that just isn’t newsworthy, but hey, you can obsess about it & that’ll fill a few minutes of your day!
Hang in there, Karen ~ I’m sure something will come along soon to fill the media void created by the end of the presidential campaign.
November 6, 2008 at 1:30 am
BJMallory
I’ll go you one better…I think it originally started with the Hindenberg. Remember seeing that video over and over growing up? The tagline, “Oh! The HUMANITY!!”
November 6, 2008 at 2:41 am
Cal White
Offhand, I’d say it started in earnest when we got 24 hour cable news networks. 24 hours in a day is a LOT to fill even when the world provides your material.
Enjoying your blog Karen, prety well as much as the comic strip. I actually check out the age a couple of times a day instead of just once.
November 6, 2008 at 8:33 am
Josh McDonald
My mother remembers that when JFK was assassinated, it became the only thing on television for days afterward. No new information or anything; just the Zapruder film aired over and over again.
But I think the constant oversaturation starts with cable television and 24-hour news channels.
November 6, 2008 at 10:54 am
Leslie
Busy doesn’t have to be an insult. My daughter is very busy. She is active rambunctious always asking “why” and touching and exploring. I never thought busy was a bad thing as long as they are happy. With my child I have choose my battles otherwise the only word she would know is “no.” Messes are worth a happy child exploring her world, mud, mayhem, make childhood. Tell Eve not to be so oversensitive, remind her that a lot of times when we feel people are watching us, it is only in our mind and we are self-centered by nature, so we are really only watching ourselves not others.
Kate-”The bubble-headed bleach blond talking ’bout the plane crash with a gleam in her eye.”
Voyuerism is something all of us are guilty of at one time or another. I could care less about OJ, he did it get over it, way too young for Kennedy, but we all know there is a lot more in the pot than the government is letting on, the paparazzi-bastards killed Di, remember Baby Jessica? I barely do, it is just the next bite. We can’t help it. Though I have little patience for that stuff, I usually wait about ten years and watch “I love the 80’s” to find out what happened. Eventually there will be “I love the 00’s?” And we can reminice about all the doofy stuff we watched later. Maybe Paris Hilton will shoot Britney Spears in a “who is the bigger boozed up waste of air time.” fight while Michael Jackson gets abducted by aliens and then you can get your fix Karen.
November 6, 2008 at 11:50 am
samcarter14
Personally, I’m taking a hiatus from watching any news on TV. I am sick of the talking heads masquerading as journalists, spinning the news to make it mean what they want it to mean. Sean Hannity said it best: “This will be known as the year journalism died.” Journalists are no longer objective reporters of the news.
When was it decided we needed 24/7 news? Honestly. I can read news online, if I want. I have a friend who chucked her TV (they watch movies on DVD, but no cable, satellite, nothing). I think she’s the happiest person I know, and the most levelheaded.
Last night was our first night EVER not watching any news–no FOX news, no CNN, nothing. It was quite liberating. My kids are happy, too, since they were very tired of Mommy and Daddy insisting on the news being on all the time! We had been steeped in the news for the past year, it seems.
November 6, 2008 at 12:56 pm
Kate
Leslie, you’re right ~ “busy” doesn’t have to be an insult. But for parents of kids with autism and/or ADHD, “busy” IS a euphemism for exactly what Eve said it is.
There’s a difference between an inquisitive child busily exploring their environment and the activity of an autistic child. I am sure that is what Karen was referring to in this strip and I know it’s true from first-hand experience. When people comment on my autistic + ADHD son being “busy”, it most definitely is an insult and not me being self-centered and only THINKING people are looking at him when they’re actually not.
November 6, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Josh McDonald
I’m also taking a hiatus from TV news; eight years and counting. And no regrets.
November 6, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Ted Seeber
Great, yet another insult that I missed being insulted by because I didn’t know it was different than anybody else.
Sometimes I think it’s the NT community that is crazy, and us autistics that are the sane people, their speech is full of nothing other than insults and put downs.
November 6, 2008 at 6:17 pm
Kate
Ted, I’m not talking about a high-functioning autistic or a person with Asperger’s, which I am assuming you must be since A) you are interested & capable of joining in online discussions and B) your challenges were mild enough that you didn’t get flagged as a child for an autism diagnosis… if a person can make it in life to adulthood before getting themselves diagnosed on the spectrum, they have to be pretty high-functioning and capable. Also, I discern from the comments that you make that you have a decent grasp of subtlety, which is not a skill that a typical autistic person possesses, either, so I don’t think you are really that different from the NT community you express disdain for.
If, as a child, you were aware enough of others to remember being told you were “busy”, then you have social skills that many autistic individuals do not possess. As you can see in today’s strip, Seth is oblivious to the stranger’s look & comment. The woman was talking to Eve. And that is how it often happens with parents of autistic children… the rude comments and judgments get said in front of the child, but the child doesn’t notice (and therefore doesn’t care) what is being said about them.
November 6, 2008 at 7:34 pm
Ted Seeber
It’s more that I remember my own RELATIVES calling me that. Strangers had far worse terms: retard, fag (still don’t know where that came from, been heterosexual as long as I can remember), jerk, nerd, idiot. And when I was growing up in the 1970s, Asperger’s wasn’t even on the spectrum- not until DSM-IV was published in 1996.
As for grasping subtlety- well, that’s a lot easier to do in an autistic medium such as text, blogs, e-mail; than in real life. Just ask my wife- she’s had to learn to put things into concrete terms or else my coping skill of ignoring what I don’t understand just makes “hints” into so much extraneous noise. Which, given HER learning disability, was extremely hard for her. You see, she gets word meanings mixed up- kind of a syntax-dyslexia instead of a letter-dyslexia. So sometimes what she says is the entire opposite of what she means; doesn’t help much.
Don’t assume that just because an autistic child hasn’t *responded* to the comment, means that they’ve not *noticed* the comment. I spent years not responding to insults that just went completely over my head; but the eidetic memory means I remember every second- and years later something somebody said can still hurt. If anything, most autistic children are really far more perceptive and sensitive than parents and teachers give them credit for; they just have a different set of priorities than everybody else, a different world that they’re living in. One in which talking, or even acknowledging others, is unnecessary and a waste of energy. After all, if somebody’s insulting you just “to make fun”, why should you participate in the pain?
Of course, the problem with THAT is something every human being, autistic or not, ends up having to deal with- PTSD anger. Thanks to that, my only “friend” in the 8th grade ended up with my pencil in his forehead, which I of course got suspended for.
November 6, 2008 at 10:09 pm
Leslie Helwig
Kate-ok I took it to mean all children, not to mention the lady kind of resembled her mother, so that is why I got confused. Actually T-Man, most non-autistic men don’t respond to hints either, Subtlety is kind of lost on that y-chromosome thing anyway. In that event be proud to be a part of the fraternity of the perpetually clueless, at least where us double x’s are concerned =-)
November 6, 2008 at 11:38 pm
tb4000
I actually listened to….*shudder* Dennis Miller yesterday morning, and he said while he wasn’t for Obama, watching the elderly black people’s faces as they saw the first black prez was heart-wrenching for him. I don’t doubt that for a minute, man. And he actually said he was glad to see it, so I think all those naysayers do have some deep rooted gladness about this happening.