The Indoctrination will be Televised: Part 2

Special Thanks to my new editor and one of my favourite people Joy Groves.

Hola de nuevo. Welcome back. Where were we? Oh right…ahem. If “Reality Television” looks a lot like late-stage capitalism, it’s because it is. They are one and the same. As an empire unravels and eats itself, it’s values and culture will follow in tandem. This has been the case for millennia and is nothing new per se, but the modern twist is that we watch now in real time, in a way never before expierenced, largely because of the internet. If you are watching it, you are watching entertainment that Orwell was falling over himself to save us from. The dystopian laugh track if you will. Serving to personify, project and normalize doublethink, thought crime, 2 legs good/4 legs bad and everything else Mr. Blair, aka Orwell, was yelling at the top of his lungs over 70 years ago.

“But Don Pato, there are countries and blocs who avoided reality television so this can’t be the case for the global control agenda you speak of.” To this I say, reality television is like the Borg, it adapts and seeds itself to new nations, peoples and cultures magnificently with little effort. American Idol becomes Canadian Idol or Colombian Idol, probably some Zionist Idol I missed, but you get the point. Even if you get the point I can’t resist. ‘Survivor’ becomes ‘The Simple Life’ becomes ‘Storage Wars’, becomes ‘Ice Road Truckers’, Big Brother, Cribs, The Real Life, and on and on. Just like the deep state from where this is spawned, the surface changes slightly but this new agenda never does. Or, no matter who you vote for, the government always gets in.

It really is quite a brilliant strategy. People will watch these programs willingly because they have been conditioned to. George Costanza once replied to a question of some NBC rep of why would anyone watch a show about nothing with the immortal phrase “Because it’s on TV!”. I can attest first-hand that this was what I had been doing for my entire childhood. I am very lucky, for when I was born. Had I arrived a little later to the party, I might not be writing this. I might be watching Duck Dynasty.

My god Duck Dynasty. This one hurt more then any other. Television had literally gone from my heart and for my jugular. From the depths of my soul I mean it when I say that I would rather watch a book being written in it’s entirety from across a table, than ever watch that show. You all realize those rednecks are not actually rednecks right? They are educated, super wealthy actors with red neck leanings. Even their beards were grown out for the show. They figured out early on they could lie about anything and people would still watch. They watched Seinfeld too, everybody did. Those cretinous producers were even calling this strategy “Guided reality” for a time. If you think the global mass acceptance of COVID vaccinations or the Iraq war was possible without an assist from “Reality Televison”, I’ve got a show about selling bridges I would like to watch with you.

So. “Reality Television” is now 20 years old and almost unrecognizable from my long ago sweetheart. She is more gruesome and inane than even I thought possible, and this transformation could not have happened without help. Where was the help? Well, I think there was a softening blow in the 90’s that was a new genre but wasn’t exactly “Reality Television”. It collectively lowered our morals and tolerance and made way for the main event. The experiment’s flagship was a program called “Cops”.

“Cops”, with its catchy Inner Circle theme song (a Bob Marley rip-off if ever there was one) and M.O. of making entertainment out of the plight of mostly darky poors, was just gross. I admit I watched it at times, but it always felt sinister. And it was sick. And it was popular. And it led to awful spin offs like that customs show where they nab the poors at border crossings. This initial trickle of programming eventually burst the dam and the flood has drowned enough of us that television could begin the mop-up phase. Harkening back to my comments at the end of “TIWBT Part 1”, we were now as a society, ready for the coup de grace.

Now I gotta say that there is still a spark of hope in television. Her powers can be used for good, it just depends on who is setting her agenda. Modern break through programs like Better Call Saul can still awe and inspire, they are just so rare. As a womanizing adulterer, I will never stop stealing glances at my old fling and this is a good thing, however shallow, because I used to think that all the best shows were already written. Now I think the best show is yet to come. The current landscape demands that we must strive to write the best show in the world. I was once in an AA meeting and had to follow one of those impossible to follow shares. The guy before me had laid out his life story and had the audience in tears and hanging on every word. His share was potent, real, heart warming and revelatory. When it came to me, sensing there was no way to follow this epic and be remembered, I recalled that the key to good communication is brevity (ironic since I usually ramble) and I managed to pull off a minor miracle. My share was complimentary, meta, and only possible by standing in the wake of the previous guy’s rock-bottom story. So I said,

“Nobody’s perfect…so help them.

I’m not perfect…so help me.

Ummmm, Be a good person and try not to drink so much”

That was it. I hope it translates onto paper, or this screen rather, and if not, you will just have to take my word for it that I was awesome. It resulted in the nervous tension in the room snapping and there was uproarious laughter. Maybe my dead pan delivery helped, but I had stumbled on the perfect foil. The meeting chair said we should re-write the big book. And it struck me, the proper follow up to a rock-bottom is to go back to what was good in the first place. Forget the lying whore that television has become and make her initial good qualities your reality. You are what you love, not what loves you.