Why I don’t watch TV nowadays

Let’s start with the update. I am still alive (and quite kicking 😛 ) in this horrible IT industry and it is almost a year since I got my job. Ohhhyeaaah!!! May 12th comes up and I will have completed a full year of service with Cognizant. How about that?! Facebook and whatever online stuff I used to do has almost gone extinct from my life. Just today morning a strong thought and a feeling came up and I remembered that I have a blog that is asking for a post 🙂 So, here goes..

I have never been much of a fan of TV or the mass media. Now kinda hate these. I feel like I am being fed with pre-prepared and pre-digested food. I don’t have a choice over what is right and who is right. Everything is meticulously processed, packaged and projected in such a way so as to make me believe whatever I am seeing or hearing from them is the absolute truth. Few examples from movies.

Each and every superhero movie has to have a girl who looks beautiful and always falls for the hero.
The hero always gets to win and get the girl in the end (as if the girl is an object).
Audience’s response to severity of violence has to be measured by who is being hurt, no sympathy at all if it is the anti-lead and eyes full of tears if it is the lead character.
If it is the lead role then his/her getting shot in the leg is more painful and emotion squeezing than the dozens of sidekicks who get killed.
Audience always has to idolize the lead character no matter if he is preaching good or bad.

Now for some stuff they call the Reality shows, I call them manipulated-reality shows. More than the actual competition the cameras are focused on the emotional exchanges, the crying, the laughing, the quarrels, the swearing and so on, accompanied with matching background music. I know, people like these stuff, and that is the only reason that these sell.

Now for the news. News is selected and projected in a way which is known to excite our emotions.

Biggest example; We hate anyone intruding on our privacy, but keep eyes glued to the screen whenever there is any gossip of any scandal or so..
Images of people in pain and distress are beamed live for others to consume instead of leaving them alone or helping them.
News time slots are decided depending upon the probable public reaction to it rather than importance of the event itself.

Same goes for advertisement industry. Each and every ad is meticulously designed to make you spend more and more for the stuff you don’t need at all. Examples

You don’t love your love if you don’t gift your love a teddy of chocolates or some other stuff which is supposed to be a lovely gesture.
You don’t have a status in society if you don’t wear Armani or Gucci and so on and you don’t drive an Audi.
You have be fair and lovely/handsome to be confident. Definition of handsome is also laid down by advertisers.
Now my personal favorite, If you don’t have an iPhone well, you don’t have an iPhone. What the heck is an iPhone? Does it help you sleep well at night?