BEWARE THE US TV JUNKIES!
“Some Baltimore area fans of such TV shows as the CW's Privileged and Fox's American Idol might not be able to watch their favorite shows after next Tuesday as WNUV-Channel 54 and WBFF-Channel 45 drop their analog signals and go digital-only.”
David Zurawik, Baltimore Sun Online, February 11th, 2009
A recent topic of conversation across the peaknik penninsula is to do with civil unrest. More precisely, at what point are good and honest ‘Mericans going to take up the torch and the pitchfork? How bad does it have to get before the great unwashed get up off of their burlap enrobed asses and throw themselves against the walls of the metaphorical/institutional castles von Frankenstein?
Maybe we are looking in all the wrong places. The main problem as I see it, is the prevalent myopia of much political commentary: that the current economic crisis is perceived to be, largely, a middle class implosion. Under this limited proscenium, the main players are either mom and pop buisness owners (hence the tiresome Wall Street versus main street jingle) or the victims of housing foreclosure (whose anger at ‘predator CEO’s’ - and their perceived exesses - spilled out onto the front lawn of one such Conneticut executive home on Monday.) One cannot help but feel that whatever happens in the next few weeks, the revolution will not only not be televised, but it is unlikely to gain it’s deciding traction in Bridgeport or Hartford.
Sentiments are already going so far as to equate any middle-class ire with the oft-touted entitlement culture of the baby boom generation. However, any schadenfeude at their hubris, their fall-from grace, can surely be seen as a further obfuscation of the overall issue. By boomer-bashing, all we are doing is demarcating generational battle-lines and divvying up common-sense all the more. Whether we be X-er or Boomer, what we are witnessing is an unhelpful ‘middle everything’ crisis-peoccupation: so far the clarion callers are largely calling to fellow middle-aged, middle-class, middling minds. Yet there is a entire swathe of individuals who care little or nought for these memes: namely, the young, the truly disenfranchised underclasses and the working poor. Look-e here: if there a tinderbox be, this is it. What’s more, as of next Tuesday, it is going to take a severe turn for the worse.
Yes, it is all to do with the goggle box; television; TV. The Federal Communications Commission announced that some 491 of the 1,796 full power TV stations are going to stick to their original date and cease analog transmissions on February 17th - that is, despite the the Obama-messiah administration’s last minute legislation, crafted yesterday, to keep the commercials streaming until June 12th. Those in the Whitehouse saw the writing on the wall and, no doubt, sought to give the televisually addicted millions across the homeland more time to transition to the newer digital technology. However, it is estimated that up to 6.5 million American households are currently unprepared for the switch over. Demographically, seniors, low-income and Latino households are going to be the most affected.
“So what?” you may intone. “Why don’t they just switch channels, just surf on over to another channel, one that is still running down the old wire? Surely, it is merely a case of choosing to watch the alternate CSI or Law and Order franchise?” Maybe so. But to immediately assume that such televisual journeying will be a cake walk for all is naïve at best. Viewer allegiances are engrained and extremely habitual. For the televisually addicted, the medium is not an ersatz realm, but to all intents and purposes, it is the world entire, pressed up against their own paltry and unsatisfying lives. For some, the loss of a reality show at an allotted time may be the final straw, the loss of an anodyne which effectively cemented their lives together. Faced with the choice of either changing channels, talking to their significant others, or grabbing a pitchfork, in some cases, the latter option may, indeed, prevail.
The oft-feared zombie diaspora of the deepest, darkest doomer imagination may well be sparked into reality by individuals simply putting down their god-boxes and prising themselves out of their La-Z-Boys for extended periods, psychically as well as physically. Be afraid - like, very.
