Too Much (Trivial) Information
September 4, 2008, by Prudence Baird
“Valerie has lost 43 lbs!” screams the 36-point magenta headline.
Raise your hand if you’re sick of knowing anything about some has-been rock star’s equally has-been ex-wife, who is baring her teeth at you from a magazine that assaults the senses of all who stand in line to buy their groceries at the local supermarket.
Raise your hand if you’re sick of Rachel Ray’s gummy smile. Raise your hand if you’re made nauseous by Dr. Phil’s pallid, paunchy face and bald pate. Raise your hand if you abhor Britney Spear’s pierced belly button, Mary-Kate and Ashley’s ghoulish eye make-up and any news of anyone’s rehab treatment, weight-loss or failed relationship, no matter how famous or infamous that person might be.
My hand is scraping the ceiling and I’m so short that my feet barely reach the ground.
Is it just me, or are there scores more of these voyeuristic publications than there used to be? Is it just me, or do Americans seem worse off for filling their minds with the mundane, mostly made-up minutiae of minor and major celebrities’ lives?
When I was a girl, there were legitimate tabloids that didn’t pretend to be anything but the trash they were: The World, the National Enquirer and the Star—all well-known purveyors of sleaze and falsehoods; so trashy that they didn’t get racked with legitimate publications like Time, Life, Look and Newsweek.
And as for grade B celebrities and cleavage, True Confessions-style magazines featured tell-all stories cut from whole cloth.
But today, these two genres—the made-up confessionals and the tabloids—have had offspring in the form of US Magazine, People, OK!, and a host of other unnecessary pages of bunk that would have been much better off in their original form—as trees offering shelter to birds, bugs, lichen and moss.
When did we become a nation of non-readers, obsessed with ad hominin factoids? When did we elevate nobodies to the level of somebodies?
For one, I’m thinking of that sarcastic snarkmeister, Simon Cowell, whose Wikipedia entry calls him a “television personality.” Has he done anything important besides entertain couch potatoes by lacerating American Idol contestants with his razor-sharp tongue? Two thousand years ago, Roman emperors would have him in the Coliseum whipping some poor bastard to death while the crowds cheered.
And then there’s Jennifer/Jessica/Jesse or whatever her name is. She’s all the same person, I’m sure. From what I can gather, she’s unlucky in love, has giant teeth, suffered some tragedy, lost weight, gained weight, is perhaps pregnant, had twins, lost her baby, has long blondish hair, has a new man, got back together with her old beau, is getting married, got stood up at the altar, lost her mother to a deadly disease, is in rehab, got sentenced to community service, had some kind of health scare, doesn’t speak to her mother and is estranged from her father. Did I get that right?
If you know the answer, you’re spending way too much time in supermarket lines.
September 4th, 2008 at 8:50 am
fortunately for my brain i do not follow this stuff…but the interesting thing is that the nation enquirer is now impacting our political discussions…who’da thunk…
September 4th, 2008 at 9:48 am
Rest assured. It’s not just you. The media, including Fox News has lowered the bar and Americans have become so stupid that a woman like Sarah Palin can squeak by because she “creates a buzz.” Her 17 year old daughter’s pregnancy is much less a problem than the fact that as Mayor of Wasalia she attempted to ban books like “Catcher in the Rye” from the library because they use “inappropriate language.” The fact that our nation is split in half AGAIN, only underscores how scary it has become in this country. Americans have become as trivial as the media they read and our leadership simply takes advantage of it.
September 4th, 2008 at 10:29 am
Thank you, Rosemary. Sarah Palin is tailor-made for the tabloid-age, where manufactured personalities and good teeth trump experience, intelligence and reality. Makes me wanna barf.
If McCain somehow gains the White House (by hook, but most likely by crook), we can look forward to seeing Palin’s glossy smile and wraparound eyeliner mocking us at every checkout counter in the land.
I’m attaching the must-read Gloria Steinem’s Sept. 4th OP-ED piece that you sent to me (thanks, BTW):
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-steinem4-2008sep04,0,7915118.story
September 4th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
“When did we elevate nobodies to the level of somebodies?”
Let’s ask Sarah Palin!
I didn’t know the part about her trying to ban “Catcher in the Rye.” I fear Kafka took over long ago and we just didn’t notice.
September 4th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
Palin’s story is custom made for the gossip rags. But the number of publications that accost anyone who is not agoraphobic is not to be believed! And what about the mean-spirited, snarky websites who tear actors (especially women) apart. Since actresses already are under such scrutiny, it’s takes a brave woman or a masochist to go that route. It’s a wonder we have any decent young actresses at all these days.
September 5th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
So in agreement. So pained that there is so much of this stuff out there just shrieking at us (and at our daughters) to care about all this inessential trivia in the lives of others. Of course, in the case of Sarah Palin–I confess, I just want more dirt to flow.
September 9th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
Why?! Why is it that whenever I see one of these covers I want to read it? Then when I visit a friend and read her magazine, I inevitably feel soiled. I want to get that time back so I can do something better with it!
September 24th, 2008 at 8:33 am
I’m so there with you on this – even had my own little rant on what passes for news nowadays!
Instead of real news we get gossip and trivia on media created celebs and publicity savvy politicos.
Like I said in my post, “America, you get the news you deserve”.
If we stopped buying these rags, turned the channel and clicked away from these tabloid sites they would eventually go away. Then maybe we would get real news like we did when we had anchors like Walter Cronkite.