Tabloids

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sgttomas
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Tabloids

Post by sgttomas » Mon Dec 05, 2016 1:54 pm

Google: "tabloid definition"
tab·loid
/ˈtabˌloid/
noun: tabloid; plural noun: tabloids

a newspaper having pages half the size of those of a standard newspaper, typically popular in style and dominated by headlines, photographs, and sensational stories.

: sensational in a lurid or vulgar way.
: compressed or condensed into small scope <tabloid criticism>
: featuring stories of violence, crime, or scandal presented in a sensational manner <tabloid television>
: (of or relating to) a type of popular newspaper with small pages that has many pictures and short, simple reports.
Okay, let's forget about the format size of "tabloid" since online has made that irrelevant and it was actually never a useful distinction to begin with. Very little other than tabloid journalism exists, because of the structure of how news is commoditized and monetized. And that's become very obvious to most people nowadays, but it's been structurally present for as long as we have had newspapers. There is perhaps a belief that the "yellow" period of American journalism gave way to a period of "golden" news coverage, but it's just a myth. It never existed. News is and always has been tabloid in nature. There is virtually nothing that constitutes valuable information about "the world" and if there is such valuable information it will be overwhelmingly obvious even if a person never reads a newspaper or pays attention to a single story about anything beyond their immediate social sphere.

What is covered in sufficient depth that it can be anything other than compressed or condensed into small scope? What current media publication DOESN'T fill the pages with sickening material because of the ad revenue it brings? (any maybe you aren't even sickened by it any more - God help you). What publication can possibly be said to cover the world in sufficient scope and depth as to present the "issues" in full detail? It's impossible. It's always been impossible, but perhaps not as obvious when populations are largely swayed by ideological mythologies. So what then, do you claim to have sufficient knowledge of the world to judge which stories in which publications ARE valuable for knowing the world?!??!? How did you ARRIVE at that position of omniscience?!?!?

The newspapers all lie, because they tell YOU what is NEWSWORTHY. Picking stories from a cherry picked sample isn't giving you valid statistical inferences!!!!

And the sickening part is how they revel and dwell in the scandalous, lurid, vulgar, dark aspects of humanity. Every now and then a piece of information is revealed that I am truly glad I discovered, but it's awfully strange that my world is largely mediated by media and not through human relationships. THAT aspect alone ought to be troubling and has to play a role in how a person thinks about what they are doing with their lives. Sure, that story had an impact on my life in a very positive way, but how much did I find that uplifting story necessary because of how low I allowed myself to be drawn into the dark recesses of my psyche by the machine that seeks to monetize my interests?

This isn't a "capitalism is evil" rant. Your news is making you sick by dragging you through the mud, because it fires the right hormones in your brain to make you addled, addicted, and seeking the security of a simplified worldview to calm your nerves and give you (false) confidence in your future.

Consider instead spending every single minute you are consuming someone else's worldview for your entertainment as time you could have spent in contemplative thought and prayer to your Lord. (I'm accusing myself first of all) Why don't we do that? If you want entertainment, why not go for a walk around your neighborhood? Why do you need to seek the feeling of false security through ideologies? You can't "balance" that shit with equal coverage from the "left" and "right". It's all based on a false premise that you NEED to know it to begin with. It feeds into basic emotional and hormonal mechanisms that you really aren't very good at controlling, but you've convinced yourself that you have a handle on what's going on. And I can appreciate that. This world is fucking crazy and it's emotionally necessary to find a stabilizing worldview to even put one foot in front of the other.

Do you not understand that they are using the suffering of humanity to manipulate your emotions to monetize you? And if not directly, then it is still serving the agenda of the "Machine". That machine is the play thing of the Devil, and he's got you in his trap.

https://youtu.be/gV5Dhoaxz_U?t=4m46s

Now, I'm not advocating for total ignorance of the world. But dammit, you can't confuse infotainment for truly valuable data that you can genuinely incorporate into a valid model of reality in your psyche/mind. <--- have fun unpacking that one!! (but we just forget that this threshold is TRUE and that our consumption of news isn't EVER meeting it)

If we only said what was true, and if we only listened to true speech....yeah....it almost all evaporates. We would be silent for most of our lives. So if we aren't.....ARE WE BEING TRUE!?!? That's insane to think so. Better to just be self aware that we are gratifying ourselves and speaking mostly lies. Even better to turn away from it. But that's really going to make you an outsider in this world.

God save us.

Peace,
-sgttomas
Prophet Muhammad (God send peace and blessings upon him) is reported to have said, "God says 'I am as My servant thinks I am' " ~ Sahih Al-Bukhari, Vol 9 #502 (Chapter 93, "Oneness of God")

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