Years ago after watching Bowling For
Columbine I decided to stop watching the news. During a scene where
they went to where the L.A Riots started and you saw how much of a
regular ass street it was I thought “How much news do I watch?”
This was in 2002 before the internet was useful. I did not own a
computer and did not talk about the news much with people unless it
was something sensational that everyone was talking about. I was
working in a porn shop and had been for a few years. My brother had
passed away the year prior. I was single again after a four year
relationship. My apartment was still new to me. Things were weird.
I sat and thought about the news that I
was watching. Mostly Fox 11 back before Fox was FOX. What a weird
word fox is. I would wake up and watch an hour and a half of news.
When I got home it would be on in the background and it was what I
would watch late at night. I calculated that I was watching at
minimum three hours of news a day which was about 21 hours a week.
That is almost a damned day worth of badness. Not all of it was
badness. A lot of it was just nonsense. Stories about dogs that could
yo-yo. Girls who could not stop hiccuping. How good chocolate was for
you around Valentine's Day. But as the war in Iraq and wherever else
we felt like getting oil and shit from continued the news changed and
along with it the way people behaved.
When you watch the new now you will
notice that a lot of it comes from independent sources. Footage is
from cell phones. Stories come from TMZ or Twitter. There is no
reporter investigating anything, just reporting it so when the shit
hits the fan the talking head is not held responsible for what was
said. “I'm just reading what is written.”
One of the main reasons I stopped
watching the news was because it made me feel bad and I didn't know
it. I grew up watching the news and being given a daily dose of
“poison” and built somewhat of an immunity to it. I was just used
to hearing about car crashes that did not concern me, floods in
places I'll never go, and cities being blown up that I'd never heard
of in countries I didn't know existed. It was normal. Then you
realize that it is not. I see people post and write about terrible
disasters with a frowny face or about some asshole with an angry
smilie face. Other people chime in and it becomes this terrible echo
chamber of anger, sadness, and disappointment. That echo chamber is
dangerous because it does not lead to anything. We live in a weird
time where people dogpile the latest source of anger and they are
guilty until proven ostracized.
Whenever my mother calls and asks me if
I saw the latest bad news I say “No. I'm writing.” I look outside
and while there may be a tweaker outside shouting at the trashcan and
it is a little bit too windy for my liking I am fine. Yeah, we have a
joke of a president and everyone is looking for a reason to be upset
which makes me want to be around less and less people. But overall I
am okay-ish. Yeah, I get down, but I try to work through it. I try. I
don't always succeed which is what good friends are for. But knowing
the latest death toll around the globe is not going to make me feel
better or improve my day. Talking to a friend that is feeling down
and making them laugh will.
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