WHY do we CARE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Sijik]

Part of it is a manifestation of capitalism's system of false-access: you can't be rich, but you can look at them and know about them and have them shoved down your throat until all you think about is how nice their lives are instead of how ****ty yours is.
Another part of it is so that people who's lives are utterly bankrupt, for whatever reason, can live vicariously through other people, and so they can feel better about themselves as they watch someone they precieve as higher than themselves have problems. I think I'm the only person in the town I'm currently in (save most fo the college students) who is fed-up with the **** entertainment mags at the grocery store. Nearly every time I go in there's some yuts in front of me gloating over how screwed up Paris and some trashy-looking guy (I honestly do my best no to even know their names, I just know I'm sick of seeing them every time I need a pack of bulk toilet paper... (Maybe I should just buy a subscription and get both delivered in one handy book, eh?)
But the ultimate reason is because people keep buying them. If we all (and I mean ALL) stopped buying this crap, and started buying Popular Science or whatever the leading scientific or Arts or some-odd journal the media would catch-on and adjust to compensate. Unfortunately, we've stopped having any concept of telling the media what we find entertaining, and have started letting the media tell us what we enjoy...
Religion used to be the opiate of the masses, now it's media. Why should we get off our ever-fattening asses and fix our lives when all we have to do is pick up a rag or turn on the TV and pretend?

 

[Nachimir]

Nice. Very nice. I like it. Can I use it as a satirical example in my journalism class? I'll cite the source MLA style, of course.

Sure.

 

[GMotha]

Although it'd certainly work it would probably also widen the father-daughter divide during her tweener/early teen years.

What's the problem with that? I, for one, see this as an opportunity to do... things.

 

[Stilgar]

Apart from one other guy on day staff I'm the only male at work, so the female species pretty much rules the roost. The shelves in the break room are stacked with gossip mags, and I mean STACKED. At a guess I'd say there are at least a hundred magazines for them to gaze at. If it weren't for the occasional photo of a scantily clad scarlett johansen I would probably cry at the monotony.

 

[QUALTHWAR]

Rage against the machine. Bring in a bunch of copies of field and stream and other such mags and sneak the others out to a dumpster.

I did something similar last week, but as a joke. I was in a Mugs N Jugs (like a Hooters bar) and they must have had 30 TVs in there, all tuned to sports. Typical, I know, but some of us sports fans are well-rounded and enjoy educational programming, too.

When I went to the bathroom, there was a TV in there by the sinks. No one else was in there so I changed the channel to the national geographic channel and cranked up the volume and walked out. I thought about changing it to Home Shopping, or the Disney or cartoon channel, but settled for national geographic. lol

 

[Stilgar]

haha, nice.

 

[neilthecellist]

Rage against the machine. Bring in a bunch of copies of field and stream and other such mags and sneak the others out to a dumpster.

I did something similar last week, but as a joke. I was in a Mugs N Jugs (like a Hooters bar) and they must have had 30 TVs in there, all tuned to sports. Typical, I know, but some of us sports fans are well-rounded and enjoy educational programming, too.

When I went to the bathroom, there was a TV in there by the sinks. No one else was in there so I changed the channel to the national geographic channel and cranked up the volume and walked out. I thought about changing it to Home Shopping, or the Disney or cartoon channel, but settled for national geographic. lol

Good. I like that. Good man. National geographic beats sports anyday. (I'm serious too, don't just judge by the smiley ;-) )