When I first heard the term it struck me...this idea really fits. "Tabloid culture"... we live in a tabloid culture. All the signs were there. One had only to hear those two words fall into place.
This was right around the time that reality TV shows were coming into vogue and tabloids, themselves were beginning to appear in grocery stores at the check-out counter. And appear they did, in numerous forms. Newspaper and magazine formats took the place of Time and Newsweek.
Of course, television stations were programming the likes of Jerry Springer and Maury Povich. Who impregnated whom and who done him or her wrong shows were the new ratings toppers.
So what does this say about who we are as a people and how that relates to the current state of the union and those who are in the halls of power? With all sensitivity to personal tastes and differences, to class, race, and gender...it says that we've come down a few pegs and are, perhaps, in free-fall from our once caring, tasteful, empathetic selves.
That the presidency of Donald J. Trump is both closely related to and profiting from this downturn in morality and decency, there can be no doubt. The crowds at his rallies (what President has such rallies?) seem exactly like those at the Jerry Springer show. They cheer at the insults and debasement of their fellow human beings. This can't bode well.
There is a phrase that we hear with frequency. It's some offshoot of "I've never seen this before" or "We've never seen anything like this." It applies to how the values of those in power have sunk to a new low. Those would be values like bullying and shaming, greed and avarice, violence and vengeance. The evidence is overwhelming. The 45th President has seemingly lifted the lid on a vast collective Id so that the laughter and revenge that spills out resembles the eerie sight of a bloodthirsty crowd at a lynching. They chant, they yuk it up, they smile the ear to ear grin of the self-righteous, just like the folks in those people who have been forever immortalized in a photograph with hanging or smoldering bodies in the background.
If we follow the journalism metaphor to its logical end and ask what does the tabloid culture replace, the answer is obvious. It replaces what some would call "our better angels" or the best impulses of humanity. It is about honesty and art because the tabloid is concerned with exaggeration and the sensational. And mostly it is concerned with falsehood. As the followers of the artificial sport of professional wrestling, the consumers of tabloid culture know deep within that it is all phony. It is all staged, with members of the screen actors guild "acting" their part. And like many supporters of the man who would be President, deep inside they know this but they just don't care.
The tabloid is just too tempting.
This was right around the time that reality TV shows were coming into vogue and tabloids, themselves were beginning to appear in grocery stores at the check-out counter. And appear they did, in numerous forms. Newspaper and magazine formats took the place of Time and Newsweek.
Of course, television stations were programming the likes of Jerry Springer and Maury Povich. Who impregnated whom and who done him or her wrong shows were the new ratings toppers.
So what does this say about who we are as a people and how that relates to the current state of the union and those who are in the halls of power? With all sensitivity to personal tastes and differences, to class, race, and gender...it says that we've come down a few pegs and are, perhaps, in free-fall from our once caring, tasteful, empathetic selves.
That the presidency of Donald J. Trump is both closely related to and profiting from this downturn in morality and decency, there can be no doubt. The crowds at his rallies (what President has such rallies?) seem exactly like those at the Jerry Springer show. They cheer at the insults and debasement of their fellow human beings. This can't bode well.
There is a phrase that we hear with frequency. It's some offshoot of "I've never seen this before" or "We've never seen anything like this." It applies to how the values of those in power have sunk to a new low. Those would be values like bullying and shaming, greed and avarice, violence and vengeance. The evidence is overwhelming. The 45th President has seemingly lifted the lid on a vast collective Id so that the laughter and revenge that spills out resembles the eerie sight of a bloodthirsty crowd at a lynching. They chant, they yuk it up, they smile the ear to ear grin of the self-righteous, just like the folks in those people who have been forever immortalized in a photograph with hanging or smoldering bodies in the background.
If we follow the journalism metaphor to its logical end and ask what does the tabloid culture replace, the answer is obvious. It replaces what some would call "our better angels" or the best impulses of humanity. It is about honesty and art because the tabloid is concerned with exaggeration and the sensational. And mostly it is concerned with falsehood. As the followers of the artificial sport of professional wrestling, the consumers of tabloid culture know deep within that it is all phony. It is all staged, with members of the screen actors guild "acting" their part. And like many supporters of the man who would be President, deep inside they know this but they just don't care.
The tabloid is just too tempting.
Comments