Dismissing Tabloid Mentality

DISMISSING TABLOID MENTALITY by r. andrew stokes
4/09/10

The Weekly World News disappeared from the grocery store checkout stands a couple of years ago; the internet Wal-Marted them out of the publishing business. The Sun, The Inquirer and those of that ilk still entertain us as we wait to pay for our food. So the glamour, glitch and chutzpah still adorn a part of our daily lives.
We have tabloid television, and there are radio shows you can tune in for the latest gossip about anything Hollywood. It has its appeal, but what good does it really do us? I acknowledge that some are just thrilled that movie stars have sex, endure dysfunctional relationships, and probably have nice cars. How that relates to us is not anywhere near reality, and this may be the point of the tabloid mentality; escaping non-reality.
I once saved a whole year’s worth of the Weekly World News; the headlines were great that year. “Pregnant Man Gives Birth”. “Titanic Survivor Found On Iceberg”. “Ghosts Haunt Whitehouse”. I used them in a video I produced; the old woman character I portrayed was constantly glued to her beloved tabloids, “the only truth worth knowing”. Every camera shot of her showed a different headline. “Jimmy Hoffa Found Alive”. In one of the videos she goes through “tabloid withdrawal”…it was a pretty funny scene.
Yet there are people who swear by the tabloids, and this reflects what their mind is manufacturing; non-truth. By looking outward to the shamed actresses and naughty actors it somehow justifies not looking within. The diversions in today’s world are an industry, and that alone should send shock waves through the most negligent spine…but it doesn’t. We’ve come to just accept too much crap with virtually no scrutiny. “Sound bites” appear to be enough to keep one “informed” of world events, allowing us more time for YouTube, Glenn Beck and sports ’heroes’ soap operas.
They all just seem so much more exciting than our own mundane lives. But how did our lives become mundane? Perhaps…horrors…it’s from participating in tabloid mentality. Jehovah’s Witnesses hand out tabloid-looking pamphlets of a paradise I certainly want no part of, and it is based on goods that have been tampered with; a re-written bible, re-written and re-written, parts removed (might not be suitable for children) and some parts embellished (some parts are not edible, see your doctor for details). The bible has essentially become the proverbial e-mail joke that makes the rounds, returning to us after three years with two pages of names, wording changed, politically-corrected and arrows along the sides that testify to the thousands of computers it’s been through. Even the punch line is altered so it doesn’t offend curmudgeons.
While all your attention is diverted to temporary crap you don’t need to know, the time you had is now gone; you could have been asking about that which is not present or obvious.
For example, it makes clear sense that a group of humans would definitely have some sort of tangible guidelines for the basic structure of their existence. Such texts do exist. The bible was key to them, but was tampered with for very specific reasons.
“Oh, that’s just ‘conspiracy theory’”.
And THAT is “Tabloid Mentality”. Brushing away the uncomfortable with a handy excuse, because the uncomfortable facts pretty much challenge our belief structures. Inquiring minds want to know, so it is advertised.
Thus the bolder go on-line looking for the answers. There are millions of places you can visit on the internet for “answers”, the majority of them tainted with some sort of agenda, and very few facts. We are left to ponder what this mess means, and every day that passes, the junk piles higher for us to sort through. There is a 200-mile floating island of literal garbage on the Pacific ocean; that is where our modern technology has gotten us; a good headline will help you keep your mind off of it.

On a “personal development” forum for “smart people” I see members posting speculations about 2012, asking about Atlantis, and some giving answers that are mere Old Wives Tales. We aren’t exchanging information; we’re swapping stories. We’re entertaining each other with air-filled pastries that have no nutritional value, and whose wrappers end up on that floating garbage island. It floats because it doesn’t have enough substance to sink.

More importantly, it is the sequence in which these matters are addressed that are askew, haphazard and ill maintained. It could very well BE that Jimmy Hoffa is alive; how is that affecting your personal “development”? In what area of your life has Jimmy Hoffa been an important influence? Have you studied his life history? If not, the fact that he might be alive really has no import on your daily life. Your mind can make all the arguments it wants…and probably will…about your ‘freedom’ to bone up on Jimmy Hoffa’s whereabouts and the implications it has on, say, the price of butter. The part of the thought-process you’re glossing over is the most important part; you’ve forgotten that every one of these episodes you fight for invariably concludes in “oh, so what?” Thus, you don’t see the whole process of wasting time on tabloid mentality.

My apologies to those writing thesis’s and essays about the Life of Jimmy Hoffa.

The tabloid mentality is indeed an addiction, and it is such because it is a clinging to diversions. It’s going through life looking sideways, hoping to not meet an unavoidable fact, like floating garbage islands you feel you can do nothing about. But you CAN do something about it; you can refuse to eat those air-filled pastries. Oh, but they’re SO delicious, and if you save fifty proof-of-purchase stamps, you get a FREE one! Good golly, put that on the “to-do” list for today’s accomplishments! THAT’LL show those Jehovah’s Witnesses who’s boss!

My apologies to Jehovah’s Witnesses who are studying The Life Of Jimmy Hoffa while eating air-filled pastries.

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We can click any number of buttons and hear biblical spewage that maintains the run-in-circles club, yet not a one of them cares to address the issue any deeper than what THEY were “schooled” on. I have finally placed a bumper sticker on my truck…a monumental event since I decided to place no statements on my vehicles. But this one says it all:

WHAT YOU ACCEPT, YOU TEACH.

In the rock band “Rush” song “Free Will”, a clever line goes thus: “If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.”

So if you merely accept something as fact, you are choosing to believe it, without question, and without really consciously questioning it. It then becomes part of what you “teach”, because you’ve allowed it into your floating island of garbage. Those poking fun at “tin foil hats” have taken the tin foil hats, cut a hole at the top, then turned them upside-down in order to funnel crap into their own minds. This is the Republican/Democrat duality NASCAR race, where we want to see things going in circles fast, and occasionally get into really good wrecks; drama is part of our non-nutritional diet. A few plastic fenders have been discovered on garbage Island. An advertisement decal on one fender endorses air-filled pastries, and part of a flapping tabloid under it reveals that Jehovah’s Witnesses, Incorporated OWNS the pastry factory, to finance the removal of Gideon’s bibles in Baptist hotels. I know for a fact this could be almost true, maybe.

What you choose to study in life is not a matter of temporary placement; you are a sentient being who will continue to be cognizant after disembodiment; everything you’re doing right now affects the rest of Eternity. Eternity, itself, has been tabloitized in the many issues of Disney Disinformation Digest and numerous “Family Circus” cartoons; neither of them pin-points WHEN Eternity starts. It appears to begin sometime in the future. So the time we’re jerking off really doesn’t count because we’re just practicing. We’re just poking fun at our hands. All this that we’ve been given is just that one throw of the dice…or a similar hand movement…toward heaven or hell. The rest is inconsequential. Or so someone would have you believe. And if you accept someone else’s definition of your life, I can assure you that ’someone’ won’t be within 1,000 light years of you when you stand accountable for…by golly…your life. They’ll be off ruining someone else’s day.

I read about this in the tabloids. It made me think I should examine life a little closer. Maybe join Kingdom Hall…I’m a smart gambler; having one foot on each square appears to give me the illusion that I’ll WIN no matter what. I’d finish this essay but Oprah’s on in five minutes, and I want to make sure I have plenty of snacks for today’s topic; shrinking hemorrhoids.

And floating Garbage Islands.

FIN

Very creative

That's a great read. Funny and profound. Thanks.

The biblical key to the structure of existence is still available if you know where to look.