General Discussion

He said that, in his opinion, reality TV has a lot to do with the mood of the country these days. That producers and directors encourage anti-social behavior and bad attitudes and acting out and even fisticuffs and other physically-violent encounters because it makes for great TV and great ratings. That may indeed be part of it.

Like, for example, I wonder how many teenage girls assume that if they get knocked up during high school, well, somebody'll just give 'em a reality show and that'll solve everything! And they'll be FAMOUS!!!! And they'll make lots of MONEY!!!! YAY! Just like those pathetic miscreants on there now - I think one of 'em (some creature named Amber I think?) even got sent to jail or something. I do know for a fact that this was indeed something the Octomom assumed. She figured because she had a veritable litter of babies that she'd be able to support them just fine because somebody was surely going to sign her to a reality show! I remember reading this and really getting pissed off about it. She pointed to the whole "Jon and Kate plus Eight" show and figured - "well, I can top THEM! I'm gonna get signed any day now, 'cause if eight is good, 14 is BETTER! Fame and fortune here I come!" And what happened? NOTHING. She's rotting in some cheap suburb out here somewhere and just barely getting by, with all those kids running wild all over the place and poorly supervised and few if any friends or others to help her and she's forced to do porn and stuff to make a few bucks just to be able to go to the grocery store. I feel very sorry for the kids involved, since they never asked for this. But I don't have much sympathy for her. Reality shows are like fairy godmothers. They're not around every corner and very few people actually meet one, much less gain anything from such a meeting. And they don't just magically show up simply because one THINKS one is deserving. That only happens in the movies.

There's so much out there now in society at large that encourages and rewards bad behavior, and stiffs and scorns good behavior. The good guys are usually depicted as nerds or dolts or losers - the ones you laugh and sneer at. The bad guys are the cool hip edgy, even sexy ones who break the rules and cut the corners and beat up on people and terrorize and intimidate others, and get away with stuff. And that's looked on, in general, as something good, positive, admirable, worthy of imitation. I mean, look at Rihanna and how she just still gushes over that Chris Brown asshole - and he's a frickin' BATTERER! But it's so outlaw that it's just cool! And those assholes all grow up to be mitt romney and george w. bush. Except that most of 'em don't have that kind of money so they're just plain ASSHOLES.

Used to be I didn't like seeing the media get blamed every time something went wrong in society. Full disclosure here, I spent all of my career in the media as a reporter, news anchor, interviewer, talk show host, writer, producer, and sometimes engineer. But I no longer feel that way - that the media isn't to blame. It is. Especially since there are so many kinds of media, information brokers and brokerages if you will. Information could be factual or fictitious, print or broadcast or cable or web, news or entertainment, but it's information. Period. It's all input. Input coming at your brain, your eyeballs, your ears, your skin, your mouth, any way in that will cause a reaction or response.

And I think the over-arching messaging that seeps in through the pores is a get-rich-quick, confrontational, gimme-gimme, make-me-an-overnight-star-'cause-I-don't-wanna-have-to-work-that-hard-for-it, in-yer-face, stir something up, bad-is-better, raunchier-is-better, nastier-is-better, meaner-is-better, sneakier-is-better, provoke merely for the sake of provoking, crime does indeed pay - and pay BIGTIME, dumber-is-better, and certainly richer-is-better (and it doesn't matter how you got rich, either!). I think that's delivered via all kinds of in-flow, whether it's "American Idol" or Howard Stern or Chris Brown or "South Park" or the Kardashians or "Girls Gone Wild" or whatever sports bad boy it is this week or "Apprentice" or whatever-the-hell it is, ALL of that pushes it farther down the pop culture sewer pipe. When I was a reporter, I had a supervisor who wanted that envelope pushed until we ripped it up. His day was MADE if he'd driven into work in the morning and heard something used on his local raunchy "Morning Zoo" radio show that turned out to be ours. That was like the proverbial apple a day that kept the doctor away. You were golden all day long if something you'd left overnight for morning drive was used by Howard Stern or any of 'em - now I suppose it'd be Ryan Seacrest also.

It's what turned the cast asshole in any given show from the negative example into the hero. Eddie Haskell was never to be looked up to on "Leave It to Beaver." NOWADAYS? He'd be the freakin' HERO! He'd get his own spin-off series! His own action figure! His own video game! They'd give him a recording contract and a development deal and you name it. Then he'd become like Ryan Seacrest spinning off himself and other rude, nasty, in-yer-face or weasely, sneaky-ass, what-shitty-and-near-criminal-behavior-can-I-get-away-with characters into a host of reality and other shows ad nauseam, and he'd be an obscenely rich man.

That avalanche dumps all over us every day. I think over time it has, and has had, an effect on society in general, the pop culture, and the national zeitgeist if you will. Just my opinion. It's an industry I used to work in, and cover (AND apologize for), and I think it carries a lot of the blame.