Do we get what we deserve? At times of political upheaval, there is an old cliche that says the populace gets the government it deserves. Just for once I am not going to talk about the government, but the implications posed by the front page of my broadband. It has a panel of five or six photographs and comments, which are presented, whether you want it or not, mostly depicting celebrities in some guise or another. You have to search elsewhere if you want to find the important things in life’. At the same time, flashing advertisements from all parts of the screen distract your eyes. This seems a totally new approach, and I haven’t the technicality to be able to transform it to just a simple statement of the things that I think are important, such as the weather, worldwide news, domestic news, and perhaps a little humour.
The problem that I see is that we are getting what those who are responsible for our entertainment, our news level, and our general diet on the web and on the TV screen, deem to be most popular, and in consequence the level of our taste. It says more about us than it does about them. It wasn’t as if these celebrities are being portrayed as people to be looked up to. On the contrary every opportunity is taken to denigrate them, and a lot of them leave themselves open to that treatment, and seem to enjoy it, on the principle of any publicity is good publicity. I think it is time that we all decided that if we were going to elevate someone to the status of Celebrity, that person should do something more than just their job, be it a chef with a vocabulary of the gutter, some actress who has a propensity for presenting us a broad view of most of her chest, assuming that is her main attraction, or a notorious husband-and-wife team having a rather messy separation. It seems that quality is no more news-worthy, than the News itself.