Circus of Death

[Vasteel]

Too true. It's like on the freeway when everyone is slowing the hell down for no good reason. A bit later, you see it's because of the accident everyone's been checking out. Too many people crave dirty laundry.

For Hell and Death are never full, so the eyes of men are never satisfied

[Fe 26]

Rationality doesn't enter in to that decision to look, it's hard wired.

yeah, but people under 40 don't really watch a ton of news.

This is just a guess, but I think what happens is that most people don't watch the news. Then a bad thing happens that appears to be personal (but isn't) or peeks some morbid curiosity and the person in question creates a habit of checking the news. Then they never stop.

Somewhere at fox news and CNN, in a locked filing cabinet, there are probably studies on reports on how to report on mass tragedy in the best way possible to create these new consumers.

[Fe 26]

At my lady's folks, I noticed exactly the same thing on their local news, and my girlfriend and I both commented on it simultaneously. We couldn't decide if it was more than usual, or if it's just that we hadn't watched it in so long we are no longer accustomed to it.

But yeah, I think you're exactly right, and I would go farther and add its a malefic influence on society. In like what, 2000, 2005? 07?violent crime in the US was at an all time low. But the perception of its danger (and racist political agenda) was disproportionately high. There is only one thing to blame for that.

One of the fascinating things about the last one I watched had both positive and negative stories related to guns, but it was presented in such a way that both would dog whistle different things to each party. Like, they would show busted mugshots of a brown person that shot someone with a gun, while later reporting a story of cops and firefighters having to rescue two duck hunters but not showing or mentioning the guns.

A racist is going to watch that and see those mean brown people (who doesn't look mean in a mugshot?). And then see white duck hunters with guns rescued by fine upstanding cops and firefighters.

A liberal will watch the same news story and think "man, that guy would be alive right now if not for that gun." And probably mostly ignore the story about duck hunting. They probably won't make a positive connection with guns and hunting or even think much about it being a non violent gun related story, probably because liberals are less likely to be duck hunters (my observation anyway). Worst case? They think the dope wouldn't need to be rescued if he wasn't out hunting.

I would be impressed if local news actually knew how to craft the news to do this however. Its probably just some old guys that have a feel for what gets the most views and probably don't understand why.

[Gohron]

Most news media in the US has become more about entertainment than about news. I still read the headline stories on BBC just about every day but I’m even starting to question that. I might pop on to Facebook every now and again to look at a picture my wife posted or something but I’ve pretty much abandoned all social media and thus have been missing out on quite a bit that I was formerly accustomed to seeing all day, every day.

[Josh]

Get off of facebook. I would say go to instagram, but it's all bullshit now too.

[Calliander]

Get off of facebook. I would say go to instagram, but it's all bullshit now too.

Even Twitter sucks unless you confine yourself to a niche community, and even then the outside shit bleeds in from time to time. Everyone was talking about Mastodon for a while but I haven't checked that out. What would be really great is if these social networks dissolve and we go back to forums like this.

[Gohron]

Get off of facebook. I would say go to instagram, but it's all bullshit now too.

I pretty much am. I keep my account live so that Melly can tag me in photos and whatnot but I haven’t scrolled through my feed or made a post in months. I may spend all of five minutes a week on the app. I’ve never been into Instagram or Twitter, pretty much anything else. I don’t think it’s healthy to be always be connected and constantly bombarded with what’s going on with everyone else. I don’t even like talking on the phone or texting. My last cellphone bill had a little over 100 minutes of talk and 80 texts on my line for the month.

Even Twitter sucks unless you confine yourself to a niche community, and even then the outside shit bleeds in from time to time. Everyone was talking about Mastodon for a while but I haven't checked that out. What would be really great is if these social networks dissolve and we go back to forums like this.

I concur. I’ve had a lot of memories on TNL and some other forums over the years but most of that has dried up.

[Satsuki]

With Tumblr collapsing and major platforms banning adult content, we'll see a natural return to private online spaces. I don't know if it will be forums exactly, but it will be a similar setup. Hopefully. god willing.

[Fe 26]

Visiting folks.

Some random white guy went to a walmart and shot up a car of a mom with her kids. Killed the 7 year old.

Local news showed the mother in the bed, crying, reliving the experience.

Circus of death.

[Satsuki]

Jfc. I’ve avoided the 24 hour news cycle almost entirely this break, and I’m better for it. I know there’s a shutdown and the stock market is back and forth, but I don’t care to know any more than that.