When I was a kid, my idea of a nutritious breakfast consisted on a large bowl of corn flakes from whatever brand I was propagandized into without even realizing it.
Children of the GMO Corn
The 1980s were probably the most successful years for televised commercials. Only a handful of TV conglomerates owned every single channel your eyes could watch.
And let me tell you, they weren’t that many channels to begin with.
There was a limited amount of screen time where all the product companies in the world had to compete for the costumer’s attention. But here’s the thing:
There never really was a competition.
Only the biggest and richest could afford to pay for that screen time, and more importantly, many of these mega-companies actually owned either shares, or even entire television channels.
For them these were truly times of wine and roses.
You would hear of any competing products and they would make you believe that their product is the best there is. They could replace solid nutrients with cheap but questionable fillers while convincing you that you’re paying for top-notch quality.
Hell, they could even take some sugary-water and convince you it’s the nectar of the gods.
And they did.
“Right now, there is a whole, an entire generation that never knew anything that didn't come out of this tube. This tube is the Gospel. The ultimate revelation! This tube can make or break Presidents, Popes, Prime Ministers. This tube is the most awesome, god-damn force in the whole godless world. And woe is us if it ever falls into the hands of the wrong people” - Howard Beale.
What if Fake News is All We Had
I still remember how back in 2007 any talk about a potential economic crisis was completely ridiculed by anyone I knew.
“There will never be any crisis in the western world now stop being ridiculous.” You’d hear time and time again.
Television is never wrong, or so they say.
The same thing happened with the Tonkin incident which resulted in the Vietnam war and some of the darkest chapters of human history.
It makes you want to wish everybody believed those “conspiracy theorists” instead of TV and saved the world a whole lot of bombs.
As it turns out TV can be wrong, the same as they have been wrong about the so called “Big Brother paranoia”.
As it turns out, all those people were not paranoid. The government was.
So yes, television lies. There’s no lie detector attached to the cable network to make sure that the anchors would only broadcast truthful information.
And the same goes for objectivity. Between the sponsors, the investors, the shareholders and not to mention the special interests that actually own the goddamn channel… If any piece of information was damaging to any of those parties or their friends, then you know that news will never see the light of day.
And the same goes for shaping or twisting information to fit a certain narrative, or even making stuff up when necessary.
Or in the case of Brian Williams, he’ll tell you that he was there.
There was a time where most people believed anything that came out of the tube and felt a significant discomfort whenever they are presented with a new information that contradicts the one coming from their beloved TV.
That phenomenon is known as cognitive dissonance.
You see, television was “the pleasure box” for many people during multiple decades. Their favorite actors were there, their favorite programs, their favorite sport… Even porn was there.
Every single day, they would receive a daily dose of pleasure associated with TV. So when you just come around with some opposing view that may indicated that the pleasure box was lying to them, people would inevitable react to that.
It is as if you’ve told them that their parents were lying to them.
But now the game has changed.
Now if someone wants to watch a movie they’ll just stream it. If they wanted to watch a series they’ll probably go to Netflix or a similar app.
If they wanted to watch porn, they’ll go to a website that provides them with the exact type of porn that they’re into.
And they can watch it from everywhere.
Television is no longer the most important member of the family.
And the attachment to it is not nearly as strong as it was in the previous generations.
Which means that the predisposition to cognitive dissonance is not nearly as strong as in the previous generations. So it becomes much more easier for the common man to see behind the lie than any other time before.
And from that point forward, it was only a matter of time until the term Fake News became mainstream.
I agree with you. Television has certainly lost influence, particularly with young people. I think that likely why you see the vast majority of television programming is aimed at people in their late 20's-early 30's now days, the people who grew up during the same peak period for television influence that you talked about in this post. Even most cartoons nowdays seem equally aimed at people in their 20's as they are at children. Interestingly it also seems to be that age group that constantly defends and re-elects the political establishment, with some help from the baby boomers of course.
Hey I like the post and the way you laid it out. I totally agreed, we used to be programmed to watch whatever was on TV. Now we have the freedom to choose what we want to see and watch :). Thanks and upvoted.
Nice comment on this post...keep it up boss
i love this statement @africaunited, "Television is no longer the most important member of the family.
And the attachment to it is not nearly as strong as it was in the previous generations".
But i missed something back then and thats the coming together of the family seeing the television, now, everyone can be in his room seeing whatever he feels like seeing but then, if i have to choose between then and now, i am so choosing now.
i can sensor whatever i see or hear from the television by going on my phone to find out if such it true.
Great Post
Haha I already had a feeling that clip was going yo get used. I saw it in the movie Zeitgeist.
Its so true that the television had sooo much power over peoples lives. I never watch television anymore only internet. Like youtube and ofcourse Steemit.
Cool post got my vote and follow ;)
Yes absolutely right,
now we have the freedom
to choose what to see.
Excellent Post!
Good topic.
I always thought if someone rolled out a flat out fake news channel under the guise of trying to be serious but every story is a bit more obviously made up that it would thrive, comedically of course.
👍
BOT ALERT!
Right now social networks has increased their influence dramatically big brands choose to have an ad through bloggers instead of other sources. Who could have imagined that?
Man, crazy insight to how the world has changed. In this generation, everything is out our fingertips. I think we're now influenced by social media... twitter, Instagram, facebook etc. Dope post bro
So, it appears to be the end of an era, the end of TV/big media influenced era. Its all good, just don't forget about the downside, which is this TV/big media is being replaced by "confusion". With how things works right now, I only can imagine more chaos moving ahead. :)
I agree, in past we were forced to watch whatever they loved to display, but now we have freedom to watch anything we like, this is because of the competition.
our generation is consious enough not to believe every news on TV ..and luckily we have a lot of sources to search for the reliability of something..