One clue about how a society is going and what direction it's taking is advertising. People and companies spend fortunes in advertising every year, every month, every week. Just a cursory look at what's being advertised will tell you something about the society we are living in and its values. Another indicator is to see what the mainstream media is paying attention to. That is even scarier and more obnoxious to me than the advertising indicators. In a sense, they both tell us what is important to citizens and what the public is buying in terms of both physical items and social and political concerns.
Look at the news. It used to be that the news was really news--something that was going to affect our lives politically and socially. Every time a news story gets "hot" it is sucking the life from stories that are important in less sexy, less "tabloid" issues. The impending collapse of social security and Medicare, the horrendous income tax mess, any real discussion about how to deal with the Middle East--all these are blithely shoved aside by a constant and repulsive explosion of parroting broadcasts about Paris Hilton, Brittany Spears and the death of Anna Nicole Smith. I find this not only repulsive and obnoxious, but, frankly, very scary. More and more important issues are ignored while tabloid issues take front and center. More and more we see the same phrases bandied about by newscasters who cry "tragic" with regard to Anna Nicole Smith and "hot item" with regard to Paris Hilton. And these stories go on for weeks, taking up entire news cycles that ignore more important issues. The frightening thing about this is that evidently people are watching this junk, and this is really scary to me because it means they're not demanding that news broadcasters get back to reporting about matters of some importance. In a sense, the news itself has become one big advertising medium because tabloid issues sell papers and media.
The news has always been in love with negative reporting, but more and more, we see an increase in reportage about high profile sports figures who behave like thugs. It is as if these people are important to our lives and our futures. There has always been a symbiotic relationship between the public and the media. If people would turn off the irrelevant news and stop taking papers who advertise garbage reporting, this would become more balanced, we'd begin to see some interesting and really important subjects begin to appear. If I hear one more time the phrase "global warming" I'll throw up. Neither the media nor politicians have allowed alternate points of view on the issue of climate change to have any voice whatsoever. It's as if all those dissenting with the argument about human causes for climate change are dismissed with a frightening stubbornness that echoes the controlled media of past fascist regimes. Silence any opposition by ignoring it and magnify only one point of view. This was the method used by Hitler and by Mussolini in pre-war Germany and Italy to convince whole populations of one particular point of view, and it's quite frightening and horrendous. I find that any time we see the media broadcasting only one point of view we're in danger of being manipulated for political and social reasons that have nothing to do with the issue at hand.
Now onto advertising. Advertisers are constantly touting Viagra and many drugs that emphasize sexual performance. Sexy women with tight pants who have become more and more "tough" and less and less feminine sell cars. I have really noticed that prime time has become dominated by Viagra ads, ads for drugs to make us sleep, keep us happy, make our kids less disruptive in school. Then there are the ads from loudmouth lawyers who scream that they can retrieve money for us from "damages lawsuits" regarding any number of things. Have a lung disease? Call Lawyer A. Have a kid with Cerebral Palsy or autism? Call Lawyer B. What about a heart condition or death? Call Lawyer C, who can make a case it was caused by anti-depressants or any number of other things. In short, advertising at the most heavily watched prime time is dominated by ads that sell sex, lawsuits and drugs. If that doesn't give anyone pause to wonder what the American public is buying, I don't know what is.
Frankly, these trends are not only obnoxious; they're disturbing and quite frightening. What they show us about ourselves and our willingness to pay attention to these ads and to care about the useless tabloid "reporting" is a reflection of our willingness to accept whatever is thrown our way without question. They are more than just passing trends. They are a reflection of a society that is losing cohesion and decent moral standards. They are, in fact, indicators of the increasing selfishness, self-centered crassness, and indifference to our common unity of purpose and principles.
