The Real Purpose of TV

I am acquainted with a number of people who claim to not watch the boob tube or at least very little of it. Maybe it is the passivity we a lulled into.There used to be a theory that there were subliminal messages imbeded in the advertisements to purchase various items. You don't hear much of that anymore as conspiracy theories go but the insidious nature of advertising is very creative in the messages that are transmitted. As a culture we have been gradually "influenced" to buy products we don't really need and to be consumers spending money and supporting the economy. That hasn't been very effective lately as evidenced by the economic crisis we face.

Credit card debt and buying what we want rather than what we need has placed many people in a precarious financial situation. Do we really need the fancy car to feel we are successful as a sign of our prosperity? Is it necessary to have a cell phone with all the gadgets that does everything but think for us? TV sets keep getting bigger so we can view all the TV shows and buy all the advertised products including imagining we have something wrong with us and need to take some type of pill to alleviate our symptoms of bad breath or incontinence.

The sexual messages are no longer subtle, more direct in promoting we all should drink to have a good time and maybe if we are lucky we will hook up with a stranger and over romanticize promiscuity. There is a moral lesson in some of this that maybe things have become a lot out of hand. Where did this all go wrong, or are people not even aware of it which is equally scary. I do not claim to have an accurate moral compass but even if you let yourself observe this or think about it for a moment it can be somewhat disturbing.


Do the people who program TV think we are really that stupid? Apparently they do or perhaps over time we have normalized to the point we have become TV zombies. The cross over between reality and fantasy at times can be difficult to discern. The role models whom we bestow celebrity on in my opinion are vacuous and incipient. Since when do we allow someone like Paris Hilton or Charlie Sheen be idolized for being a masochist and a misogynist. They deserve each other.

Now that I have had my rant I will go back to my TV set and watch my favorite programs and be passively influenced until I no longer have a mind or am able to think for myself.