Big pond, small ears
Noticed a long-lasting constant in radio entertainment. True from the '40s to the present. Probably applies to TV as well, but I haven't watched TV steadily so can't make any conclusions.

Constant: Whenever a radio program makes an implicit or explicit assumption about its listeners, the program assumes that the listeners are WINNERS, top-status types.

We're all winners here! I'm the biggest winner, of course, but you're also potential winners, especially if you admire me and suck up to me. You know losers. Losers are those annoying tiny smelly insect-like little tiny people who annoy you by buzzing around loserishly and making incomprehensible loserish buzzing sounds. You know all about those annoying tiny little buzzy losers because you are a WINNER. Not up to MY winning, of course.

This assumption is FALSE BY DEFINITION, since winners are not listeners. Winners are on the active end of the circuit. Winners start out as winners. They are attractive or impressive from birth. People want to be around them, want to obey their orders. Winners thus spend most of their time talking and giving orders, while others listen or obey.

Globalism has amplified this problem to the final extreme. In the '40s most radio was local, and most announcers were winners on a local scale. When you've made it to the microphone of a 250 watt station in Minot, you have to go home and listen to Mom and Uncle Louie and Neighbor Henrietta. You don't have a choice. If you get too high and mighty, the microphone will be yanked out of your hand.

Feedback disappears when you are talking on an international network. You live among other winners. Louie and Henrietta have no power over you.

We can see the apotheosis in the Soros media fiasco. NYTimes hires Liz Spayd to determine why it isn't WINNING as totally as it should be, since by the inalterable order of Nature NYTimes should be receiving subscription fees from the entire world. Liz actually reaches the right conclusion: NYTimes doesn't rule the entire world as ferociously as it wants because it doesn't listen. What happens next? NYTimes doesn't listen to Liz Spayd. It continues roaring and screeching the voices in its own delusional head because it can only hear the voices in its own delusional head.

= = = = =

Why is the winner-assumption harmful? Because it leads non-winners to expect impossible outcomes. Sooner or later you wake up and smell the lukewarm coffee. At best you learn to enjoy lukewarm coffee and try to forget the years you wasted working toward an impossible goal. At worst you jump from a roof or bridge or parking structure. At even worser than worst you decide to take some people along when you jump.

Labels: Make or break

  ¶ 7:58 AM