Posts Tagged "TV"
Local News
Was local news ever good? Because recently it’s gone from bad to downright hilarious. Between ridiculous human interest stories, to complete and utter misinformation, it’s no wonder cable news stations are doing so well right now.
Last week Improv Anywhere set up an awesome April Fools prank in which they randomly “invaded” a funeral. Turns out it was a hoax set up for April Fool’s and no actual funeral was involved. However, some local news station picked it up, and reported it as fact.
Apparently, in order to make it onto the nightly news, a story doesn’t have to go through any fact-checking, or verification at all. Really, all it needs is a YouTube video, and it’s fit for broadcast.
And if I need to watch Al Roker struggling with a newfangled piece of technology one more time, I’m going to throw up. Network news caters to the lowest-common-denominator, and the result is a newsroom staffed with people in that very bracket.
No one has been as much a staple in my network news upbringing than Sue Simmons. This woman must be a complete nutjob off the air, because if you Google her name, you’ll find a few choice YouTube videos. I really can’t say anything about them that the clips themselves don’t say. Click on to watch.
Reality TV School
This article from Slate, about an NYC reality TV school is downright disturbing. The point seems to be that this course will give you a leg-up on being cast in a reality series. Now, I’m not going to dwell on the fact that of course the people who will pay to learn how to depict reality are exactly the ones that belong on these shows. No, instead, I think it’s more important that we step back and look at what this means.
This Robert Galinsky fellow has quite a racket going, and I wonder if he even knows it. See, the whole point of this class seems to be to teach students how to be an amplified and self-assured version of themselves. I guess this is somewhat commendable – after all, being true to oneself does seem important – but Galinsky is making money off it. This wouldn’t be so bad, except that it’s misguided information; he’s telling his students that they need to affect this behavior. It’s a fine line, but kind of an unfair one.
What I think would be really fun is a reality show about this place. Think about it: it’s a treat for everyone there, since they’re trying to be on TV. It’s great for Galinksy because it gives his class more exposure. It’s good for the networks since not only does it promise to be a hit, but it’s extra advertising for reality TV in general. Plus, we all get to watch a bunch of crazies trying to affect their ways to stardom via trashy TV. Who’s with me on this?
Jingles
So, I’m kind of bummed. Brian and I were psyched to audition for Mark Burnett’s new reality show ‘Jingles.’ The basic premise is that teams compete to write commercial jingles for ad companies. The idea behind the show is to revive the art of the jingle.
You can imagine why Brian and I were so excited about this. Well, it turns out that we’d have to be available for six weeks this summer/fall. It would be kind of hard to justify taking a semester off to be on a reality show about commercial jingles. Maybe next season, after it becomes the most successful television venture in the history of the medium.
Also, all you web designers out there: can anyone figure out what’s wrong with my navbar? The lightup buttons display too high on Macs. I have neither a Mac nor the knowhow to fix this issue, so any help would be much appreciated.
