Many people believe everything they hear. Whenever people are on the checkout line at the grocery store, they see the tabloids with headlines like “Brangelina adopting another child!?” and “The Jonas Brothers: are they through?” they pick up that magazine. Not only do they read it, but also they think about it and start trying to analyze it. “Why would she do that? What was he thinking?” They begin to judge these people whom they’ve never met just because of what a tabloid said. Now everyone does this, we hear that Lindsay Lohan went into rehab again and we pity her or we scold her. But why? We have nothing to do with these people. We do this because media brainwashes society.
Of course people like to be fixated on something. Looking at these tabloids, occupies their time. It gives them a moment to focus on someone else’s life for a moment. But it’s all superficial.
We are just mesmerized by the shiny screen around celebrities. But how does this make people more valuable?
The role models created by the media are only there to make money. These people have to be extra careful if they are going to go out to party or make one mistake because the whole world will find out. When little kids watch the people on television that they look up to doing drugs and getting arrested how good a path does that set? All little kids say that one day they want to be famous but they don’t know the consequences. One slip up could keep them being harassed by paparazzi for weeks and little stunts will not be forgotten.
Media brainwashes society because it is all an illusion. Let’s take Miley Cyrus for an example. Miley is only seventeen and has taken the world by storm. The minute the television is turned on I guarantee she will be on at least four channels. This teenager eats, sleeps, and breaths just like the rest of us but why is she made out to be like some sort of supernatural being? It’s all an act. Just like when she puts her blonde wig on to play Hannah Montana. Miley probably has tons of people waiting on her hand and foot to do her makeup, hair, coach her, prep her, etc. just so what we all see looks believable. In a way the products of Hollywood are just like Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. Made up.
An extremely unrealistic type of media (ironically enough) is reality TV. Reality TV can be entertaining but behind all the gossip, fights, and other drama is no substance. It is actually staged. Bethenny Frankel star of Bravo REALITY show Real Housewives of New York was asked to speak at a charity luncheon and when got up to the podium was stuttering because she was no good without her cue cards. She was basically booed of the stage. This just goes to show how staged all of media is. The popular MTV show Jersey Shore for example put eight twenty something year old Italian- Americans into a house for the summer and showed what went on. Well, many people were insulted by this show even when it was revealed that two of the eight weren’t even Italian! Now normally this wouldn’t make a difference but half of the fistfights started because of people making fun of their heritage.
Also, people do the stupidest things just to get noticed. They even put their children in danger just to get a television show. Let’s take Balloon boy for example. A couple in Colorado Springs, CO reported that their young boy Falcon Heene untied their hot-air balloon. They reported him missing while hiding him in the attic but only soon did the media find out that it was all a hoax. Why did they put their child in danger? Well they did for a reality show of course. I can see it now “Balloon Boy’s Wild Antics and Parents on Parole.” Catchy huh. But the stupidity doesn’t end here people strive for fame in any way, shape, or form that they would even sneak into the White House for fame. Tareq and Michaele Salahi were aspiring reality TV stars and they thought a good way to jump-start their career would be to crash a First Dinner at the White House. “While some may see this as just another desperate stunt to get cast on a reality TV show such as Richard Heene's runaway balloon hoax from last month, this time the show's producers may have been in on the act.” Says CBS News.
The problem is it’s entertaining. The exception is when the television is on in the background as just a dull noise, or that moment at the grocery store when you are reading about how someone else screwed up. Publicly. And you think to yourself, “Wow at least the whole world doesn’t know about the bad relationship I just got out of.” And instead of pitying the “stars” you just read that tabloid to pass the time until the cashier asks for your credit card. And you don’t obsess but just shrug it off and go on with the rest of your day.