Just the facts / This makes me want to shoot myself ...

Does anyone understand why people are so obsessed with celebrities? Who cares who’s dating whom? Who gives a sht what Britney names her baby? Who cares if Mel Gibson hates Jews? WHY DOES THIS MATTER TO PEOPLE? Do they not realize that this is just a tactic employed by the media to tear us away from things that matter, like the ugly truths of corporate crime, state sponsored terrorism, and war? In my eyes, it really dosen’t get any less intelligent than giving a sht what Janet Jackson is wearing to the Grammys or how much coke the Olsen twins do. This entire aspect of American culture makes me want to shoot myself in the face!

I really don’t pay much attention to what goes on in the media, but there’s no use stressing over it in the first place; I’d rather just think of it as neutral, rather than being angry about the whole thing. Who, other than people who have far too much time on their hands, cares?

I take as much interest in celebrities and their private lives as I do an asteroid hitting Earth.

I don’t care. I live my life how I want to, Celebrities lives theirs how they want. And if an asteroid was to hit Earth, sobeit, I will still live my life my way, even if it’s about to end.

Well Daniel, simply put, because a celebritie is the new paradigm of a hero. :yes:

Just shoot.

That’s what I did. Well, not literally. I haven’t watched TV in months and I don’t read magazines other then Scientific American, Popular Science and Discover, which I only read occasionally. I still get the news though, via the paper and the Beyond3D forum.

If I met Tom Cruise tomorrow I wouldn’t ask for an autograph. Rather, I would ask him why precising Scientology is effective in terms of behaviour modification, and if it leaves unkempt “relic” thoughts behind to eat away at your consciousness. I’m fairly sure it does personally as Tom is an example himself.

Y’know, heres a question. Why are there so many celebrity lookalikes, when every non-celebrity is unique?

Does that mean heros now nearly drop their babies, or drive off without belting them up safely? Because that sounds more like the hero’s adversary than the hero.

Nope, that means stupid people who have never studied but are generally beaufitul and manage to make mountains of money are appealing. And the TV and movies and radios and pretty much anything else telling you to see these people as role models of course helps…

It used to be if everything you did was important, you were a celebrity. Now if you’re a celebrity, everything you do is important. I like the old celebrities of their time: Einstein, Rossevelt, Wells. What they did was important, and people only focused on the things that made them important, not their sex life or the latest clothes they wore

Wow, just a few day back me and my cousin just screamed about all of that, screaching about how media ruins everything and how people should concentrate more on the wars that are happening and try to solve things peacefully. I live in Canada and it tears my heart out to know that Canada is Warring right know in the middle east, we had a reputation for being a peaceful country and were well known for it, and know that is gone. DayLight I can feel what your stressing and i could probably write on about how stupid the media is for hours…and BlissfulBluees you are very true when you says to be neutral which i do but it angers me to let the stupidity slide. I try my best to hide from the media news, which i bet others do to, but its just plastered everywhere that it makes you want to hurl…

Ahh yes, I too have often wondered why the masses treat the Hollywood socialites as if they were royalty. Here’s my take on it:

Actors are for the most part just a pretty face, they excel in pretending to be someone that they aren’t. Often finding themselves in the public eye, they obsess over their appearance and become a slave to their own image…Many times I’ve related showbusiness to one big doll house, in which everyone can see what room the inhabitants are in at the moment, and what they are doing in there. Pretty soon these people are making millions playing roles and the publicity goes to their heads. As a result they become spoiled cry-babys who demand to be treated like royalty and praised wherever they go. So why does America love these glorified models so much? Probably because of the drama and glamor that follows them around, and because it is a living breathing soap opera which takes place in real-life. That is my view of the situation and personally I could care less about how many times Brittany and her boy-toy have dropped their baby. :grrr:

I tink pieople just whant someting to goship abut.

Its so people can be like well celebrities aren’t as different from myself maybe i can break into being a celebrity. Its like false hope i think, or from what i have witnessed.

Also I am like blissful blues i dont really know what the hell is going on, just who is who(gotta keep up with the pretty women in the world) People need something to look up too something to aspire to, so they raise these people up on pedestals(sorry if any misspelling) and try to become like them worship them envy and want them. It is like worshipping a false “God”. It is for anyone who hates their lives and themselve or have extreme insecurities. I am not saying that is everyone’s case, but i believe that is the biggest reason however.

Really i didnt know canada was helping in the “war on terrorism” Ithuriel. I must admit that i did admire the settings in Canada, i am curious how all of canda was layed back and not as America. What is your media and news like?

Well Skeedlz it is probably quite similar as it is to the US. I bet it is way more extreme there though because of all the celebrities there and all the people, Canada does seem (I think is) layed back because it is a quiet country and a follow up to the states . And about the war, we have a partnership to the US. Before our old prime minister left(Paul Martin), he decided to aid the “war on terrorism”. So when the new Prime Minister was elected(Steven Harper) he decided to continue aiding the war. I think maybe they have done this to keep on good terms with the US. Especially seeming the US would aid us if anything went rong here(the partnership)( And our smaller military). But we wouldn’t need aid if we didn’t give anybody a reason to harm Canada. So we have lost or peace to violence and death… And if its a war against terrorism we have just made the terrorism worse, involving more countries, hurting and killing many people.

Maybe this belongs in the Cloud. I dunno, I think it probably fits here better.

I’m angry at the United States and their media coverage. Absolutely disgusted. Why? Well, I’ll tell you why.

I don’t care about Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. I don’t care if the former is retiring from doing nothing only to, inevitably, do nothing once again. I don’t care if the latter is going to have another 3590 babies with another 32189 husbands. I don’t care that a stadium was renamed or that such-and-such sports team won or not. When I go to the news, I want to find the news.

My point. They will have a humongous story when an American couple dies. How about when 146+ people are killed in a typhoon which caused a landslide? I’m not talking about the New Orleans incident.

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6197478.stm

You know its the same in all countries, not only US.

The thing is, when medias only talk about horrible stuff, people complain. When medias only talk about good stuff, people complain.

I think we have to accept the fact that people, you and I include, are naturally unsatisfied. We blame the media ( I do that too pretty often) but trully, it’s not about the media. It’s about us. Nobody force you or me to watch TV.

When people will stop asking for Paris Hilton, or Britney Spears, they will disappear as quickly as they came.

[url]Just the facts / This makes me want to shoot myself ...]

My topic disscussing the same thing. Could a merge be in order?

merged … also added ‘just the facts’ (neo’s title) to the title so we have a little more of an idea what the topic is about :moogle:

No, Julien, I think Sean is right. It’s not about what people want to know, because we’re not even being offered all there is to know in the first place—how can we claim knowledge we’re not aware of? Plus, it’s obvious to anyone that studied language how facts can be manipulated. Example? Well, I bet I—a citizen of the so called “Third World” who studied in a humanistic school with a socialist History teacher—learned about the Algerian war of independence in a VERY if not completely different way than you, a Frenchman, did. Either way of teaching it was better or fairer or even right to begin with? I don’t think so.

It gets scarier when you stop focusing on the news and start focusing on mass culture. Soap operas for instance. In the last chapter of a recently finished Brazilian soap, the slaves were set free, so the Coffee Barons were hiring Italian and German immigrants to work in the farms. The wife of one of these barons, Sinhá Moça, talks to her servant, and former slave, about it:

“I’m so anxious about it. All these new people coming to our home to work with us. How can we trust these foreigners if we don’t know them?”

To that, the servant speaks:

“Don’t worry, milady. They won’t take those lands from us. These people will learn those lands are rightfully ours and that if they want their own lands, they will have to work hard to deserve them.”

So what, you ask. Well, do you see the ideology being passed on in the background? To me, that was a clear message from Rede Globo (Brazilian equivalent to the Fox Network) to the homeless peoples movement (MST), who claim a Land Reform distributing the government’s lands evenly to the homeless peoples, a controversial issue in Brazil because the farm owners argue that if someone deserves a land, that’s whoever can take care of it and make it profit for the whole country, which is the conservative elite’s general point of view.

We have a poet here in Brazil, his name is Chico Alvim. He plays with the moralizing effect of the mass media. His poetry, which is bought and read by the elite of the country, often reflects everyday phrases that people say in their everyday life without realizing the grotesque ideals behind them. When you read something you might say innocently in your everyday life written down and thrown back at you, ooo, don’t you feel guilty?

BUT

She is so neat!

PARKS

Are good
But
A little too mixed

Alvim plays with marginal poetry and “higher class” literature too, a bit like the French–born, Spanish writer, Max Aub. Here’s a couple of other poems from Alvim and short stories from Aub which play with that spoken obmoral code, those cultural assumptions that go against the most fundamental values of morals.

ANXIOUSLY

Whoever has windows
should just spy on the World.

—Chico Alvim

FACTOTUM

The worst thing
is to owe someone a favour
Look, Virgilio,
you don’t owe me nothing, no
Only your leg…

—Chico Alvim

“I killed him because it was stronger than me.”

(On the next page: )
“I killed him because I was stronger than him.”

—Max Aub

“I wanna see that workers’ strike now!”

—Max Aub

“Am I guilty for being homossexual? He didn’t have any reasons not to.”

—Max Aub

I can’t stand ‘Entertainment News’ programs, as we call them here in Canada. I just don’t care about that stuff…I mean, if Mel Gibson goes on an anti-semitic rant, or Michael Richards starts acting like a racist, I’ll care a little bit, because racism is still an issue that needs to be dealt with…but as far as what Brittany Spears or Paris Hilton did last weekend, I couldn’t be bothered with that.
I don’t think the media uses this as a tool for control of the masses or anything like that (in fact, some TV shows are unbelievable good at satirizing this aspect of the media), they are just giving people what they want. Lots of people want to know about what celebrities are up to because they look up to them; they want to know what their role models are doing. I suppose it makes the fans feel a bit closer to their idols.

Wanting to know what their role models are doing, or getting closer to one’s idols, as you put it yourself, is not moralizing?