Television is stupid

Truly, amazingly stupid. So stupid, it's depressed the collective IQ of the population of the Western World 100 points. It's so darned dumb that its impact would be like burning 1,000 libraries at Alexandria.

It's dumb.

And getting dumber.

In 1961 the Chairman of the FCC, Newton Minnow, observed the following:

When television is good, nothing — not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers — nothing is better.

But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite each of you to sit down in front of your own television set when your station goes on the air and stay there, for a day, without a book, without a magazine, without a newspaper, without a profit and loss sheet or a rating book to distract you. Keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that what you will observe is a vast wasteland.

You will see a procession of game shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, western bad men, western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence, and cartoons. And endlessly commercials — many screaming, cajoling, and offending. And most of all, boredom. True, you'll see a few things you will enjoy. But they will be very, very few. And if you think I exaggerate, I only ask you to try it.

Truer words were never spoken, and things have gotten infinitely worse since then. Indeed, the era that Minnow was writing about is now regarded as "The Golden Age of Television", with entire channels devoted to rerunning the very programs that Minnow complained about.

In comparison, the "vast wasteland" that Minnow wrote about has become some sort of tar pit of stupidity.  Consider what's on.

There are, for example, an entire collection of "reality shows" based upon the goings of of allegedly "beautiful people" of one kind or another.  Some, set in the epicenter of vapidity, Hollywood California, feature people whom we are clearly supposed to believe are beautiful, wealthy and interesting. They may be wealthy, but that's it.  And yet the impressionable minds that watch this slop are fed hours upon hours of programming that this or that aging actress or personality must be beautiful, rather than plastic, and their sad lives of bitchiness and cattiness are interesting. 

As part of that, I'd note, there's a clearly some sort of program going on, probably run by the UK's MI6, to export the village idiots of England to the United States.  We're on to you, United Kingdom.  It can't be the case that the US is lacking idiots, so this is clearly nefarious.  Having a British accent doesn't make a person interesting, television it makes them English.  They can stay home and pollute the BBC if they must be on television.

Or, for another example, take Guillianna and Bill.  Here's a married couple that works on television or in entertainment, but they're so boring, they make oatmeal look fascinating in comparison. They're boring with a side order of dull, served on cardboard. Boring. And yet television serves up a series based on their boringness.

Or let's take TLC, which started off as "The Learning Channel".  Now, it seemingly is focusing on people who are violating the laws of their states by having multiple boring spouses.  Why is this on television?  TLC virtually serves as some sort of propaganda channel for a lifestyle that is pretty uniformly regarded as horrific by those who escape it, and yet they serve it up every week. 

Kids' programming doesn't escape this either. The dreaded Disney Channel looses nothing in methods to the glory days of Ford Motors.  It's a factory, serving up show after show based on absurdly precocious children with bizarrely naive friend, living in homes with childlike almost stupid parents. Anyone who has watched more than two Disney Channel episodes ought to be able to write an entire series effortlessly.

Regular programming, to the extent it exists, is not much better.  Ever single season television outdoes itself to be more "edgy" or "contemporary" by taking things further and further in a moral swamp, and portraying it as cool.  The hallmark for this may be the former really popular series "Friends", which is supposedly really funny, but if you stop and consider what the real lives of somebody living in the fashion portrayed would be like, it wouldn't be so funny at all.  Quite the contrary, actually.

Or even the alleged "news" now fails.  Entire channels are more or less in the category of political cheerleaders for one political view or another, and not real news.  Edward R. Murrow must be crying in the next world.

Probably ought to just turn the whole stupid thing off.