codshit.com: Reality Bites

Tuesday 6 May 2003

Reality Bites

The only thing that's worse than Murdoch is the bile and garbage that issues forth from his channels polluting the minds of millions with the most mindless crap one can imagine. Shows like Temptation Island, Survivor, Big Brother, are about as close to "reality" as schools of fish learning to play pianos and giving concerts while flying over the Sydney opera house on the back of winged pigs! It's cheap nasty TV at it's most cheap and nasty.

Pop Culture Poison: Reality TV

Flipping through the television channels last week, I was amazed by the amount of “reality” programming that fills up the airwaves of prime time. Chances are, on any given night, either the broadcast networks or their cable counterparts will be offering the latest opportunity for you to watch men and women eating bovine testicles, walking on broken glass, or maybe even cheating on their husbands or wives.

Producers around the country can’t seem to get enough. It’s estimated that reality TV will account for nearly 40% of this summer’s television offerings, as each of the big four broadcast networks have staked their claim in what is the first gold rush of the 21st century. The reasoning behind this shift is twofold: the genre is extremely cheap to produce, and has the potential for huge ratings. In a climate where it is not unusual for television stars to ask for a million dollars an episode, the idea of paying some no names a few thousand dollars per episode, while surpassing the big name sitcoms in the ratings, is a very appealing one. It is because of these very appealing thoughts of the almighty dollar that networks continue to peddle out what is quite possibly the most disturbing aspect of our popular culture.

Reality television, by definition, is an outright lie. The point is to get people to watch. Hardly anyone (aside from NBA all stars) will have 50 women fighting for the right to date them. Even less will have the voyeuristic experience of living in a camera and microphone filled house with 10 other people. The high ratings for such shows rely on this complete departure from the reality of the majority of Americans. This reliance on being shocking and exciting also requires the makers of such entertainment to keep pushing the envelope further and further, in order to keep attracting viewers. Who wants to watch the same show over and over again? Thus begins the natural progression from the fairly innocuous “Real World” of the early 90s to the trash TV of today.

The major problem with this continuing slide in programming is that those who view it don’t walk away unaffected. The behavior that was once a complete departure from the everyday slowly begins to become normal and accepted. Because people are social animals, we learn by imitating behavior of others. The skills that allow us to walk, talk, read, and write are all dependent on us watching and listening to someone else do it first. We are built to learn by doing what others do.

Full story...

Enlightenment

Do you feel like you're living in some Orwellian nightmare? Or perhaps you feel as if you're plugged into The Matrix? Well if so, you've come to the right place. No matter how messed up you thought the world was, by the time you've finished reading some of the things I've found on my travels in Cyberspace you'll realise that 1984 was just a typo!

A note to the non-ravers out there: codshit is NOT a derogatory or insulting term and bears no relation in offensiveness to its four-letter cousin, it's a word used to describe the nonsense that people sometimes talk when they are off their heads. To understand what codshit is watch the film Human Traffic.

Comments are welcome, but before you waste perfectly useful energy abusing me please take a moment to reflect on the basic right we all have to express ourselves!

Please remember that I am not telling you what to think or believe, take everything you read here with a large grain of salt!

Wisdom

Americans have different ways of saying things. They say 'elevator', we say 'lift'...they say 'President', we say 'stupid psychopathic git'....
.: Alexi Sayle :.

If you confront the Universe with good intentions in your heart it will reflect that and reward your intent... usually... It just doesn't always do it in the way you expect.
.: G'kar :.

So there, we have figured it out, go back to bed America, your government has figured out how it all transpired. Go back to bed America, your government is in control again. Here, here's American Gladiators. Watch this, shut up. Go back to bed America, here's American Gladiators. Here's 56 channels of it. Watch these pituitary retards bang their fuckin skulls together and congratulate you on living in the land of freedom. Here you go America, you are free... to do as we tell you.
.: Bill Hicks :.

Let there be no doubt that the people of the free world are engaged in a war... In the next few years, we are either going to see the people of the free world rise up against these fascists, now setting the stage for global war, or we are going to see the end of democracy as we know it with martial law the end result.
.: David Shayler :.

Nothing will end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war.
.: Albert Einstein :.

Wisdom