My husband is reading a book, The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America. It was first published in 1962.
Do yourself a favor and read the first two pages of it (page three and four of the Introduction). See if you can figure out someone could know these things fifty years ago!
The first time I was aware of my own voracious appetite for news, in 1997. Andrew Cunanan had murdered Gianni Versace. The police were closing in and I was sitting in front of an AOL screen, refreshing the window and watching it update at least once per minute.
Today, when I picture myself staring at the screen, refreshing it a if I were a machine, looking for, Andrew, I’m appalled! Recently, I snapped. Elsa has jumped the shark! I no longer click on the news.
This change has been coming about for some years. I’ve finally been pushed it too far. I click to read something and they want a dollar or my email or for me to login with Facebook or with Twitter. I don’t want to do it. Whatever it is I’m going to read, it’s not important in my actual life. I am sick of being sent my “talking points” of the day. I’ve chosen to go off the rails.
This is probably due to Uranus in Taurus. I don’t care what, Melania, wore. I want my own life back.
We demand this constant stream of crap and what about the demands we put on others? Are they not outrageous? How did we get so deluded as to think that Prince Charming lives?
Please discuss!
Bring back newspapers
Amen….
I know that you might not mean it this way but I got me thinking …
This might be controversial to say here, since I think I’m in a certain minority. Sorry ElsaElsa readers.
I do watch TV a little bit for news some updates then I turn it off. The 24 hour news TV channel just repeats the same thing over and over again, after a while. Sigh. Most of the day they might be milking most the “breaking news” into a lot of hypothesizing, sprinkled with a tiny drop of in-depth analysis. When they do have something substantial – with evidence – suddenly something else happens, then 24-hour news channel people get distracted and leave the analysis half-baked. You realize that real news morphs subtly into sensationalism and voyeurism if you’re not careful with how you get sucked into it.
Also the Facebook ad hacks to incite violence and separation in the country, repeated echo chamber ranting (from people from my own political group), clickbait, and even the imprecise polling was so upsetting that I’m off social media permanently for national news updates… unless I’m pretty sure my friend-acquaintance has a reputation on the ground for making things happen. Basically if it’s not something that helps people take prudent actions to recognize and reconcile each other as human beings, I’ve stopped reading it.
So bring back newspapers, especially local papers, with less sensationalism. They say local news gives a more accurate account of some national news that happening in the area.
I do like news magazines too. They actually have the time to think things through before they say anything. We need that.
Back in 2008, I was a news junkies. FOX, CNN, NSNBC, you name it. I got sucked into the whole Caylee Anthony drama (thank you Nancy Grace!) Day after day after day. If I hear the phrase “unleash the lawyers!!” or see another set of talking heads on a screen yelling and talking over each other, I think I’ll blow chunks. ? Goodness. The only news I watch now is beauty drama on YouTube (a little) and I use that as a distraction and entertainment. Even so I do find myself asking the question: “Is this a good use of my time?” ST used to hate how much time I spent on this smartphone, or on Facebook. It took away from our face time and he could see me getting worked up about trivial stuff—or OTHER people’s drama! Now that he’s gone, I wish I’d put the phone down more often and given him my full attention. Real life is going on, NOW. It goes fast! Don’t miss it.
This. I need to copy and read that one sentence over and over again:
“Now that he’s gone, I wish I’d put the phone down more often and given him my full attention.”
I say this because I’m incredibly guilty of doing this myself. It’s an escape, a way to unwind…but it’s such a time suck and a waste in many ways. It’s addicting. I don’t intend to spend over an hour on Facebook but next thing you know, 2 hours have passed . I truly need to work on this because it’s not healthy at all.
I think the last time I was hooked to tv was during the 9/11 horror. I feel the same as Elsa: I just read my couple of news sites online- the world news is so scary and even our local news has so much cruelty and killings, I can’t take too much of it. Also,I hate reality shows ..never watch kardasians or real housewives..ugh. I just read my couple of news sites online- the world news is so scary and even our local news has so much cruelty and killings, I can’t take too much of it. 🙁
I have uninstalled Facebook on my amartphone and I don’t watch the news. If I WANT news, I’ll buy a paper or read a serious news site.
I have decluttered/news detoxified my life in the ways I can without being a news hermit. I have improved my ability to focus immensely because of it and am free from all the drama.
Today I was with my sister, and I had to stop and wait for her several times due to her playing Pokemon Go. I don’t get how and why you do this when it has been several months between the last meeting?!
I’m feeling my age….. ? ?
I guess we get deluded because the whole system (society – politics, religions (if corrupted), “information”, TV, movies, social media etc.) is set up to sell us crap, crap ideas, false ideals. All this is fine to hide the emptiness in lives. The emptier they are, the more you want to fill the void. (And is a vicious circle too, always expanding.)
Putting demands on others is a way of avoiding to have to do the hard work ourselves. I mean, if Prince Charming can bring you happiness, why bother to try to get it by yourself? If it doesn’t work, you can always blame this on the lack of Charming Princes. Also, who doesn’t like to dream???
All image & no content is pretty shallow. The “soul” is sick & in need of spiritual food, I think. But, that takes “work” (and time).
Reporting with no analysis but just a regurgitation of whatever angle they are trying to sell! Where’s the balance and impartiality? I want facts and not uneducated opinions. I ignore most of it.
Exactly – facts! If I can’t read someone’s speech for themselves and determine what I think, it really isn’t my opinion is it? Cut the cable a year ago, and about to to clear out facebook or severely limit my time there. I used to use it as an escape, but now it is making my life worse, and that is silly.
Bravo! I have been there myself for a while now!
Real, authentic journal has been hanged, stabbed, poisoned, and shoved down the toilet by editorials masking as journalists. If you don’t look to several sources to assemble the story, if you only listen to one source, if you don’t question every side, you have become one of the controlled masses.
Yes! Exactly! It’s frustrating.
I’m with you, Elsa et al. As my husband said, “they’re just feeding us pablum.”
I completely agree!
Haven’t had regular TV or cable in years. My kids used Netflix and Hulu. Newspapers are barely 10 pages. I have 51 Facebook friends and it’s because it’s easier to keep up with them as they are out of state. I was a horrible tabloid junkie … People, Us, etc. Went cold turkey 5 years ago. I picked one up laying around work and brought it home. Never read it. Did Pinterest but WTF, you could spend days on there and not even realize you forgot to feed the kids in 4 days. No twitter, instragram …… In the final 3rd chapter of my life, I’m going to be 58 in September, I’d just rather be outside gardening, volunteering with the homeless, people fighting addiction, mentally ill, somehow changing my little bubble of the world just a kind word or action at a time. And I raised 4 anti social media children. They say it’s the reason that there are so much drama and no real face to face time. But don’t take away their ability to text, lol.
My children, ages 28, 26, 24 and 17 also say social media is the downfall of civilization.
I like Uranus in Taurus so far. It’s helping me clearly see all the ways I haven’t been completely authentic due to insecurities. I can finally see how I’ve let insecurities fuel some of my behavior. I feel like it’s a good thing…positive. A purging. A process, but i feel like I can eventually really come into my own.
If you think about it, Taurus rules self-esteem or self-value so it makes sense. It’s opposing my Saturn in Scorpio. Which is conjunct pluto in Libra so a transformation is underway. There is a lot of obsession that needs to go and is going.
Every single day all I do is deal with people who are in panic and fear, and then I get bitched out by my coworkers for being “stressed.”
I am taking ONE LONE VACATION DAY ALL OF THE ENTIRE SUMMER tomorrow because this is the worst for OMG EMERGENCY time. I managed to get stuff done early that had to be done by tomorrow and no sooner do I do that and clear every other emergency off my plate, then here comes another fucking emergency. Literally every single thing has to be done RIGHT NOW OR ELSE OMG OMG OMG.
I am so tired and stressed and depressed and burned out and I just cannot be gone right now because all of this shit has to be done today and I am the only person at all who can help them. I was out sick one day and there were tons of fires only I could put out come the next day, I should have just come in sick.
Everyone expects that we can do everything with a snap of the fingers right now because that’s how our world works, but I work for a giant bureaucracy and we can’t do that. Except if I don’t, someone complains to the CEO and tries to get me fired.
This is what I’m talking anout@
I actually got counseled by one of the demanding folk telling me I needed to learn to say “no”. “How about starting with you?” seems to be the wrong reply to that, though. Pressed to the wall to the end of next month. For once, when the boss asked how things were going, I told him the truth instead of the happy he was fishing for.
Absolutely! I refuse to ‘log in’ using Facebook, or whatever. I’ve stopped using Facebook; it’s vapid, and a social experiment geared to herd people’s minds and views. I don’t do news, television, or the rest of it.
I quit watching the news before 9-11. Got tired of hearing the same ole’ b.s. over and over on the news. No facebook, twitter, snap, or any other “social” media. I do have a cell phone and a t.v. but I don’t stare at either screen all day. I’ve never understood why people need someone else (a journalist or a t.v. star) to influence what they spend their time thinking about. Don’t misunderstand me. I do not live in a cabin in the woods in Montana. I’m not a social outcast or unemployed. I have a productive life, I read a variety of social and political topics and determine for myself what I will stand up for and what discussions I am willing and not willing to engage in. I never feel out-of-the-loop.
Taurus Sun
Libra Rising
Leo Moon
thats funny I do live in a cabin in the woods in Montana 🙂
ps. and I agree with the theme of this topic, Our society is extremely sick, and social media is pouring fuel on the fire.
Ditto such a bad use of good energy
‘I don’t care what, Melania, wore. I want my own life back.’
😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 That’s a 5 star laugh!
I am careful about my sources. I also listen to classical music these days and try to do a tech free day once a week. I have minimal installed on my phone. I agree, if they want my Facebook information I wont do it. I don’t need it that bad. The 24 hour news cycle will suck you in and it is not healthy. It is also diversionary and redirects from what is really going on. I do like the Hudson Institute – real videos on real issues of the day. To me – tragedy of the day is not news. It is tragedy. News is something else. Agree with you on many points – have done the same in many areas myself.
I just spent time with family who were watching a movie and discussing the love lives of the actors in it as well as their ages and siblings and all of these other random facts they know about these celebrities. None of that stuff matters, but it’s where the attention is.
yeah i dont really care anymore lol i mean if i hear about it ..great. And it’s always good to be “aware” of the horrors of life and people but i think it was a kind of escapism for me. I probably trade that type of escapism for another. and for prince charming, i still delude myself, and yes i like that kind of delusion though ;p
i still believe my husband is prince charming himself, albeit grumpy and hard to live with sometimes. lol maybe a bit like beast ;p two sides of him.
I absolutely get what you mean Elsa.
That said, I devour information. It feeds me. And it can be useless. And it can be random. But researching, learning, assimilating is my thing.
I’m guessing it’s something to do with Gemini (no planets there, but was once told that in Vedic astrology it was my Moon sign) but I don’t know. Or maybe it’s the Sag rising: exploring ideas, traveling (through words and information)…
Also, it’s useful for work. I often work with people I don’t have much in common with. Current affairs and hot topics are easy-ish conversation starters and chitchat fodder. Particularly when my nature likes and is much more comfortable with passionate convos about ideals/ideas/abstract things which are MUCH harder to use in casual chitchat! LOL
This is exactly why I leave everything on a pull basis. Nothing being at me for my attention. When I am ready to check my email or text, I do. I’m running this shop, goddamit, not my phone.
I stopped watching the news years ago. I recently was able to watch it. It was a story about the dangers of playgrounds getting too hot. I shit you not.