Media fails: Geek shows and celebrity lunatics
There is nothing new here. The term "geek show" dates back to the early 20th century (at least) and refers to a specific type of traveling carnival act that featured a performer doing shocking and disgusting things (chasing and biting the heads off live chickens was popular).
It was, however, never covered live by print journalists, radio commentators, or, later, television reporters.
Celebrity lunatics are also nothing new. America held a revolution to get out from under one. If you're rich enough, powerful enough, famous enough, you have always had a reasonable chance of not being stuffed into a straitjacket and escorted to a quiet place where you'd be given medication to calm you.
But back in the days, while print journalists might coyly refer to the rantings of celebrity lunatics, once they were recognized they were generally not elected to public office, granted seats on the boards of major institutions or corporations, or hired to do challenging and complex jobs.
Then mass communications shrunk the world.
Instead of village idiots we now have national, even world idiots - because the same human impulse that made the geek show possible results in "eyes", "clicks", "shares", "likes"... all of which roughly translate to "sales" and, essentially, profit for someone.
Initially aware of, and wary of, the potential power of mass communications, governments (including the freedom-guaranteeing, Constitution-based U.S. government) regarded the channels of mass communication as a commons (rightly, in my opinion). They allowed access to frequencies, airwaves, bandwidth, etc., on the condition that those putting content out there adhere to some basic principles of fairness and harm avoidance, and enforced those principles, up to a point. There was a large gray area always in contention.
That gray area came to be regarded under the reference of "Overton window" and it evolved with public perceptions of acceptability, often vigorously contested in the courts. The process allowed some exploration of how and why content might cause harm, to whom, etc., and promoted public discourse and greater understanding, as the standards evolved.
But the content at the edges was always under scrutiny, not just by those enforcing principles of fairness and harm avoidance, but by those looking for quick profit growth. And eventually, quick profit growth won.
Regulation went by the wayside and those charged with enforcing fairness and/or harm avoidance were dismissed or co-opted.
And that's how we ended up in a rancid sea of geek shows and coverage of the rantings of celebrity lunatics.
Which isn't good for anyone except the bottom lines of the shrinking number of media conglomerates.
Adam Smith weeps.
wearily,
Bright
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