watching idiots watching idiots

TV always frightens me. Even back when I was a kid and terribly addicted to it, it still frightened me. The fright level has gone way up recently and I suspect it’s because my Inner Sociologist is taking note and starting to panic.

The first Fright Moment was watching Cops on G4. You may say that watching Cops is a Fright Moment in itself but it’s one of the few shows I used to watch. A friend says it’s just like being home (in Kentucky, where she lives). The real issue here is the Idiot Banner that continually scrolls across the bottom of the screen. It seems to feature content from a chat room. I don’t use chat rooms on my computer for many good reasons; I don’t want to watch one on my tv with people commenting on the tv show (that’s why we have blogs, right?).

The Idiot Banner is not relegated solely to G4 though. It has become an ever more intrusive feature of news and way too many tv shows. It’s like some sort of bizarre advertisement for either ADHD or ADHD medicine. Or both - who knows.

The Fifth Horseman was reality shows. There are people who don’t know there were tv shows on before it became All Reality, All the Time.

The Final Horseman has to be the shows that feature idiots doing idiotic things, but with the added feature of washed-up, temporarily on leave from rehab, ex-celebrities (Danny Bonaduce anybody?) commenting on said idiots. I suppose the only reason they’re around to comment is that they just got done filming their own reality shows, based upon their own individual trainwreck of a life.

Everyone loves watching some smartass skateboarder falling off a handrail and smacking face first into a concrete wall of some sort but not while having to listen to Danny Bonaduce comment on what an idiot this particular idiot was. Granted, Mr Bonaduce has great familiarity with what it takes to be an idiot so we can trust his experience, but who really wants to hear about it?

On a slightly serious note, if anyone Out There has anything more than an Inner Sociologist, perhaps you can verify for me the feeling that this sort of garbage on tv is a reflection of, I dunno, what Rome looked like while it was burning….