Have you noticed, I have, that politics are poison? A poison made more deadly by the delivery device? Yeah? Why? I think I know why and I think I know a lot of other illusory stuff, too. I am pretty smart. I am smart like a TV or a phone. Today, everyone has an opinion and few have tangible, provable by the five senses fact. Here goes; In politics, a slicked-hair slimeball on the back observation point of some slow-moving train is visible, can be evaluated. You can see the Brylcream dripping onto the collar, Giuliani style. Leaning on the rail, he/she politico has a certain taste, they are up-close and…poisonal. They are resistable. We can say, “Lookie there! Nasty, nasty, nasty!” and it is true. That slow train is in the past, now is the hour of Social media, Television, email, all of which have their unique flavour, their definite taste while poison is being dispensed. They add a little something dangerous. A subterfuge. Concealed death.
Social media seems close to main-line injection of poison, television to skin-popping and email the closest to just sniffing a few white lies up from the mirror. Socials are so direct, so much in your face, so addictive, so powerful in image, so quick. We become pussycats, pawing after the blinking lights without thought. In the case of television, politics takes a little time to crawl into view and we are more familiar, it’s been around long enough for us to have been badly burned by sitting too close. We learned. Television is a box we have grown accustomed to, any false-smiling face there is just another…we know these folks/snakes. They offer the very best and shiniest red of apples but we understand that ‘new and improved’ are meaningless words.
To communicate poison, the much ado-at-the-time Email worked but it required a modicum of thought/consideration/communication and is fast fading from view as did the personal letter before that. Perhaps faster? Email and letters have a longevity or impact problem. Without pictures of carnage or breasts or bums…we fill in detail at our own discretion. Our discretion is ours, it is our prejudice, our misconception, our imagination. Our knowledge is needed to create an electrical buzz. Our own discretion is less maleable than the hypnotic and everchanging bright lights of Social Media.
ooooh! With Social Media, we are at a party, a Hollywood party, far up in the hills. Everyone in the frame of view is sexy, perfect, they seem confident. Folks visiting the party here are from all over the world. Famous people, the hangers-on and the nobodys. All of us have wireless access, wi-fi. The gory details, the messy lies, the scandals are at the touch or tap of a finger. It’s electric. We carry our charging cables, searching an open outlet while Papparazzi chase innocents up the long, rocky driveway until their vehicles overturn, spilling fodder for the front page. Excuse me, it is not a front page, it is a NEWSFEED. From time to time, a flashbulb of resentment overheats and shatters, scaring the dickens out of ordinary folk next door or the kitchen help.
Through all of this, we are the common pussycat, distracted by nearly 3d High Definition fish swimming by, that is not disrupted with a paw. We bat and bat at the screen to no avail. It SEEMS so real, you could reach out and almost touch…
…and that is what is wrong. The almost-touching, not the warm, bloody, smelly, lovely, breathing, understanding, sharing kind of touching. The touch-touching is not possible with our heads down and the back-lit screens on. The pressure of choking on wacky-but-too-fast-to-evaluate somewhat believable politics, entertainment, living is building up. We are going to have to get used to that.
Robert On The Air 