Dumbed Down by Celebrity Infatuation
The influence on the mass media has tainted our views on what the real issues are. Topics that should be circulating the news circuit are put in the back burner behind the latest celebrity scandal, wardrobe malfunction, and YouTube hit. Real issues such as the war and its progress are not headlines but only on shorter time slots. It seems like the importance of important issues has even been ignored by respectable news organizations and publications. The draw to scandal has even become main news whether its focus is on celebrities or respectable public figures. Nobody is safe from gossip and the popularity it has gained is so intense that it seems that there is no end in sight.
There once was a time, before the internet and before popular gossip channels that people watched the news for the obvious reasons; to find out what was going on in the world. Important issues on the world were reported to us and debated on. Bill O 'Reilly once argued and would hassle people about crooked politicians, not Paris Hilton 's controversial commercial or Snoop Dogg 's latest drug related arrest. At one point in time people knew what was really going on in the world. It seems that the new infatuation with the popular and the scandalous has dumbed down our society. We 've been dumbed down enough to know that we have a problem and instead of trying to solve it we instead make fun of ourselves with reality game shows where our obvious lack of knowledge is a form of entertainment. Instead of being ashamed of not knowing basic elementary problems, America eats it up as a joke as seen on Fox 's hit show, "Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader?" On this show adult contestants who are often college educated, are asked a series of questions normally asked in elementary grade levels 1 through 5. The contestants are rewarded money for each answer answered correctly and are given a pool of fifth graders who can "save" a player or help them "cheat" when they don 't know the
There once was a time, before the internet and before popular gossip channels that people watched the news for the obvious reasons; to find out what was going on in the world. Important issues on the world were reported to us and debated on. Bill O 'Reilly once argued and would hassle people about crooked politicians, not Paris Hilton 's controversial commercial or Snoop Dogg 's latest drug related arrest. At one point in time people knew what was really going on in the world. It seems that the new infatuation with the popular and the scandalous has dumbed down our society. We 've been dumbed down enough to know that we have a problem and instead of trying to solve it we instead make fun of ourselves with reality game shows where our obvious lack of knowledge is a form of entertainment. Instead of being ashamed of not knowing basic elementary problems, America eats it up as a joke as seen on Fox 's hit show, "Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader?" On this show adult contestants who are often college educated, are asked a series of questions normally asked in elementary grade levels 1 through 5. The contestants are rewarded money for each answer answered correctly and are given a pool of fifth graders who can "save" a player or help them "cheat" when they don 't know the
Cited: http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/excerpts/2004-09-22-confessions-heiress_x.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_hilton#As_an_author http://www.usatoday.com/money/advertising/2003-12-19-celeb_x.htm http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/16928530/perez_hilton_the_queen_of_mean http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/showbiz.tonight/