Make no mistake. The government, the media, and commerce are actively collaborating to distract us from what’s really important in life. After all, unconsciousness is a very effective commercial, political, and even military strategy. Keeping droves of citizens medicated and overstimulated with bullshit distractions pretty much guarantees that when they go to their polling places to vote, many will have no idea who the candidates on the ballot are, let alone what the propositions they’re voting on say or mean.
Whoever said less is more was right: the less bullshit and frivolity you have in your life, the more attention you have to focus on what is really going on.
I want you to be able to see underneath, around, above, and through things, so that you can form and shape your own opinions, instead of just blindly going along with everyone else’s. A good place to start is by understanding the media. I’m going to let you in on something: every media outlet is a brand with its own point of view. Writers who work at major international newspapers are asked to express themselves in a different way than tabloid reporters. Even my book is a brand! If I appeared in a pink tutu on my book cover, you’d probably find some other chick’s book to read. As a publicist, I’ve spent twenty-five years learning the languages of different media brands. After all, if you’re going to pitch a fashion story to an industry publication like Women’s Wear Daily or Style.com, you may need a different slant than you would with Life & Style Weekly or USA Today. We like to say you have to frost the cake differently for different publications.
If you take a minute to actually look at these brands, from the major networks to the national newspapers, you’ll see that many are owned by huge, multibillion-dollar corporations (that’s billion with a b, baby!). Whether bringing you gossip or hard-hitting news, every brand is interested first and foremost in gaining more readers, viewers, or advertisers. Last time I checked, none of these major papers or networks had “.org” after their names; they are for-profit businesses. That means they have one responsibility to carry out for their owners and their boards: to engage you, the consumer or viewer, and keep you coming back for more.
How do they do this? At the top rungs of these networks and newspapers, you will find some of America’s most talented college graduates. If you were to sit in on their creative meetings, you’d hear phrases like, “Wouldn’t it be wild if we . . . ?” and “Can we try . . . ?” Many of these brands will try anything that works. I mean, let’s be honest. How many times have you bought a tabloid promising that your favorite movie star couple was getting divorced or that some young starlet had suddenly sprouted cellulite?
Good Evening, Welcome to the News: What You’re About to See Is Highly Disturbing.
One of their favorite tactics is fear. Hundreds of producers employed by news organizations sit around every day scouring the Internet, reading every paper from coast to coast and every news feed from around the world. What are they looking for? Stories that are going to keep you hooked, scared, trusting them, and coming back for more updates, whether they’re about Amish girls being slaughtered in their one-room schoolhouse by a milk truck driver in Pennsylvania, or the unspeakable home invasion tragedy of the Petit family in Connecticut, or the kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart. These were horrific acts perpetrated by psychopaths, but playing them over and over during the evening hours when most American families watch TV feels like an additional attack, both on the crimes’ victims and on the rest of us.
I don’t know about you, but this news is really freaking me out. And not just when I’m watching it either—it continues to haunt and stalk me afterwards. It’s almost as if, after seeing the nonstop, sensationalized reporting of the Amish girls’ story in 2006, my mind and heart opened a permanent portal through which I constantly revisit the scene of the crime, and I continue to pray for those girls and their families today. After being similarly besieged by coverage of the unspeakable tragedy of the rape and killing of three members of the Petit family in Connecticut, I could no longer just be at the mercy of these fears; I had to look at how they could be a teacher for me, and where I might actually be vulnerable. So I invested in a heavy-duty security system and started insisting on background checks for every person I hire at People’s Revolution as well as independent contractors for my home. Only then did I start sleeping even remotely better.
You have probably already seen the warnings on various TV programs saying, “What you’re about to see tonight is very disturbing.” Well, I think these warnings are messages from the brands too—that you’re about to get a big dose of your favorite drug, FEAR, delivered! Instead, I suggest a simple blue screen, perhaps counting down the numbers 3, 2, 1. And while we’re at it, let’s put blank covers on our newspapers, so that stories about young Disney stars “cutting” themselves and being diagnosed with borderline personality disorder don’t menace our eight-year-olds when they pop into a bodega to get a candy bar on the way home from school. (I mean, can it really be a coincidence that the candy and newspapers are always stacked on top of each other?)
The people who work at media brands are experts at giving us not what we want to see, but what they know we won’t be able to turn away from. They
