Television Made You

Television Made You 

Entertainment? Propaganda? Programming by industry name. How many years has the TV screen in all its various sizes, stolen from your presumably sane life? Living vicariously through game shows where women of all shapes and sizes jump up and down when the charismatic and gamesome Bob Barker, tightly holding his microphone shouts out, “Come on Down.” You can just see the chills running up and down the spines of all of those glued to their TV screens every weekday morning. Every housewives' vicarious dream is to be on stage with Bob and other contestants and ultimately land a new Frigidaire.

The shut-ins of all genders after they feast on the game shows can catch up on the daily soaps. As The Something Another World Turns starts the afternoon lineup. Life is good with afternoon snacks tightly held in each hand. Mustn't miss out on the grains of sand filtering through the hourglass of time.

The evening news: Where the realities of the world are blurred and carefully choreographed soundbites that are not so clearly designed to make you feel informed but always leaving you with unimaginably and unanswered questions.

The breadwinner, whether it be man or woman walks through the evening door hungry for dinner. What could possibly be a more appetizing way to end a hard-working day? Sitting down with a freshly heated TV dinner perfectly ensconced on a well-positioned TV tray, just the right distance from the flickering black and white TV that in some time, in the not-too-distant future, will be in living Peacock color.

Those were the days of our lives in 1973. The times were a changin’ my friend🎶. Now we’re on the threshold of the imaginable. The innocence of people and the innocence of their lives are a distant memory, not even chronicled accurately.

BUT WAIT: A TV milestone if you could call it that was; a toilet flushing that was heard around the world. It was brought to you in living color by a bigot named Archie. It was the first time on TV that somebody actually flushed the toilet. Audiences were talking about it for weeks, maybe months. As fast as the early Hollywood movies changed the world of fashion, it was what it meant to be chic. The simple flushing of the toilet on TV made America look different in the eyes of the sophisticated and unsophisticated world peoples.

Television meets AI, and is being hijacked by handheld digital devices with screens that would make a 1970s TV look like it was one of Edison's earliest light bulbs. Not that anyone knows who a guy named Tom Edison was. But you can discover all about him and his use of electricity and how he executed an elephant with it. If you're so inclined, go on one of your digital devices and Google your way to discovery.

Where does AI fit in these days?

It makes TV programming much cheaper to produce. In fact, actors are being cloned, and you won't be able to tell. It's becoming a not so Brave New World. No longer will you have to argue with actresses who don't want to take their clothes off for the sake artistic expression. Machine automated androids will do whatever you programmed them to do. They, the human robots that are absolutely handsome or beautiful will make you feel inadequate as a human being. Even the best prepared TV dinner won't satisfy the insecurities that will overwhelm you for the rest of your life.

Warning to mankind everywhere!

Pull the plugs on all of your TVs, tear down your satellite dishes, cut the cable in so many places it would be impossible to splice it back together. Don't worry you will still have your mobile device to keep you connected, but the screen won't be a high def OLED or a QLED Samsung 98 inch monster that nearly no home can accommodate. Preserve your sanity, don't let the perceived entertainment pressure steal away the real pleasures life has to offer.

Love makes the world go around, appreciate and love those around you and don't let a television rob you and your family of the calming nature of companionship. Your life is way too valuable to spend hour after hour staring at what many have referred to as the Boob Tube. There is amazingly good entertainment at your local library. Pick up a book and give it a read. Through the centuries people seem to be pretty smart, and what made them so smart was they read and learned. Television has become a wasteland, and not the final frontier. At least that's what my family and I discovered when we permanently shut down the TV two years ago. I no longer have repeated visions of discussing violence I saw on TV in the middle of my sleep at night. We have great conversations and we have discovered insights and things that we didn't know about each other. It's been a blessing you might want to give it a try. TV programming is becoming a tool to program your mind, and judging by what I read, it's doing a pretty good job. Let it go, I mean let the TV watching go and enjoy being a sensitive loving human being again. Those around you and your fellow man will greatly appreciate it.

“Our eyes and our minds were glazed over by the flickering light and images that were being hurled at us from a little box that became the centerpiece of our home.”  Rod Jones Artist