TELEVISION: THE MOST POWERFUL WEAPON ON EARTH

Okay,, this is a super long read!! We're going to have to read our way outta this DREAM STATE OF MIND or SNAP OUTTA THIS TRANCE!!! That's it!!!




7 Ways Our Children Are Being Brainwashed


From birth, virtually all of us have been brainwashed through various outlets that encourage materialism, ego, subservience, control and conformity. But where do the origins of mind control begin, how is it affecting our children, and what can we do about it?

7 Ways Our Children Are Being Brainwashed

1. Religion
As children, the brainwashing begins in the church when we are baptized. Many parents do not question baptism or the origins of it and blindly have their children baptized as the church welcomes them into the community in the name of Jesus Christ. The Jesus story, alone, isn’t questioned by enough Christians who blindly believe anything they are told in the name of “faith”.
I’d like to believe there is a Santa Claus and an Easter Bunny, too. These holidays both have Pagan origins, yet Christians never question these either. It’s all part of the lie propagated to us by religion.

Many Christians will argue that their church does good things for others while the bible provides good morals and values.

A counter-argument is that you don’t need a church to do good things for others or a bible to be a morally sound person. Additionally, the bible also teaches hatred and fear such as when God allegedly kills everyone with the “Great Flood”, except Noah and his family.

These are the horror stories our children learn in Sunday school. Not only that, but the messages are often convoluted and ambiguous. What kind of message are we sending our children?

While the bible provides nice parables to learn from, they are not necessary, especially with all of the other negative content provided by religion.

And we haven’t even touched all of the unnecessary deaths through inquisitions and crusades which continue today. Killing innocent people seems to have a common theme in religion and is carried on to our children as they become toddlers.

With the idea planted that it is alright to kill in the name of God, our children begin to emulate these preconceived ideas through the games they play.

2. Ridiculous role models
Boys play with cork guns and cap guns and begin to play “Cowboys and Indians” at a young age. Think about how appalling this is, not only to indigenous people but also teaching a child to kill as a “game”.

They also are bought G.I. Joe action figures and pretend to kill opposing troops. Plastic figurines of soldiers in combat are sold to children, some of which prominently display ethnicity, which plays into the divide and conquer mentality that is seeded at this age.


Most girls have played with a Barbie doll at some point in their life. The Barbie doll sets the stage for materialistic attitudes as well as buying into the Cosmo girl image. It also dictates the role and expectations of what a woman should look like while dividing our children in stereotyped roles for the rest of their lives.

3. Money, ego and materialism
We often ask our children, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Rarely does a child say, “A healer” or “A yoga instructor”. Often, a parent will help to persuade a child into a lucrative job role such becoming a doctor or lawyer.

The need for money is further enhanced through board games such as Monopoly and Life, where our children learn greed through bankrupting their friends. While there are some positive attributes of these games, the bottom line is how they support a positive view of the banksters who have corrupted this planet while emphasizing materialism and greed.

What are kids really learning in the game of Life?



4. Divide and conquer techniques
Our children are taught how to play sports and the importance of winning. While sports provide exercise and promote physical dexterity and good health, they also play into the “divide and conquer” mentality that our children will carry with them for the rest of their lives.


How many asinine arguments have you seen between two grown men arguing whose team or player is better than the other? First of all, it’s not “their” team unless they have physical ownership of it. Secondly, the two players they’re arguing about probably could care less about their argument. Lastly, these two people are too blind to see how they’re still buying into the divide and conquer mentality that was ingrained within them since they began playing “Cowboys and Indians” at a young age.

The game is blatantly being played before our own eyes, yet many of us fail to see it. For example, if the Dallas Cowboys were to play the Kansas City Chiefs (or Washington Redskins), then you have your classic “Cowboys vs. Indians” matchup. It’s all about “My tribe” is better than “Your Tribe” which keeps us separated as people.



5. Television
Many of us grew up watching television which can be a humorous outlet or an opportunity to actually learn something, but for the most part, it gets us accustomed and hypnotized into subservience once our brains enter the alpha state of conditioning. How many times have you sat through a commercial, knowing fully how much you despise the commercial without changing the channel?



Albert Bandura has a theory of modeling where the child will emulate the parent’s behavior. This is why “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree”. In the absence of the parent(s), the child will be influenced by what he or she sees on television, further influencing their materialistic and ego-ladened views of society, while accepting television as a normal part of their daily routine.

The entire main stream media (radio, television, magazines, book publishers, etc…) are owned by 6 corporations who greatly influence our children through programming. Even the word “programming” should be questioned, because this is exactly what brainwashing does… it programs our minds and especially, the minds of children who are easily influenced.

6. Education
Our educational systems encourage conformity and competition while suppressing or ignoring any special abilities a child may have, such as the ability to have an out of body experience. In addition, our children are not learning the true history of our origin while being forced to learn a propaganda filled view of what history looks like through biased eyes.

Also see: What If Everything You Were Taught Was A Lie?

The textbooks our children read are printed by companies who, ultimately, are Zionist owned. What are the chances that a Zionist view would differ from the view of a Palestinian or someone who opposes Zionism?

7. Health
In a recent article entitled, “The HIDDEN History Of Fluoride” the addition to fluoride in our water supply as well as in chemtrails has helped to dumb down the population in order to make us more subservient and controllable.

Part of the hidden history of fluoride includes the following:

1940 Soviet concentration camps maintained by fluoride administration to inmates to decrease resistance to authority and induce physical deteriorization.

1950 Soviets add fluoride to water in prison system to maintain subservience in the inmate population.

1954 C.E.Perkins, I.G.Farben chemist, admits fluoride is to reduce resistance in people to authority.

Robert Carton, PhD formerly President of the union of Government Scientists working at the US Environmental Protection Agency said: “Water fluoridation is the greatest case of scientific fraud of this century, if not of all time.”

If fluoride has been proven to create subservience in prison and concentration camps, then what is it doing to our children who refuse to question authority figures or any official government position that is against the best interests of humanity?

One must also question the insurmountable number of vaccines our children receive. There is NO amount of mercury that is acceptable in the human body, so one must ask how ANY mercury will affect our newborn children? With the incresing number of vaccines our children receive, we also see a correlation to the number of deaths due to vaccinations as well as an exponential rise in autism.

What can I do about this?
1. Realize that as long as there is money, we are ALL economic slaves.

It all happens by the age of 12-14. One thing we don’t teach our children is how accumulated wealth is a delusional idea which inconspicuously facilitates status, security and happiness, all of which are inherent without money, yet we have been engrained in this illusion that separates us as a global society while maintaining barbaric divide and conquer principles in a capitalist society masquerading as a democracy.

At what point is enough, “enough”?

2. Ask questions… a lot of them!

Our children should be encouraged to ask questions as often as possible instead of regurgitating the state-sponsored propaganda that our schools teach.

For example, because of corporate greed, we are creating an unsustainable society. The use of “fossil fuels” is a ridiculous proposition within itself to assume that all of the world’s oil came from decomposed dinosaurs, but it’s even more asinine to assume we even need oil for fuel when hydro technologies are available, such as the water powered car invented by Stanley Meyer or Tesla’s free energy system.

Innovators, such as Meyer, are “rewarded” by threats and execution by those who fear the loss of power. The simplest answer is to open source all inventions, including suppressed technologies.

Our children never learn these truths in school because according to our economic slave masters, innovation only comes at the expense of need, not conformity.

Our children should be encouraged to be the innovators of the future who work in the best interests of humanity instead of CEO’s and business executives who are pillaging our planet at the expense of the 99% who are enslaved beneath them.

2. Ask questions... a lot of them!

3. Think outside the box

Our educational system does not encourage creative thinking and the majority of what our children learn is all left-hemisphere thinking, which is mathematical and logic based, instead of right hemisphered, which is artistic and creative. By doing so, our children are essentially being trained to work either inside a cubicle or at a fast food restaurant because they never learned the tools of creativity and how to follow their life purpose versus being forced into the corporate world of economic subservience until they are 65 years old.



4. STOP WATCHING (STATE SPONSORED PROPAGANDA) TELEVISION!!!

7 Ways Our Children Are Being Brainwashed

Watching TV is arguably the #1 brainwashing tool of the corporate elite as the television will tell you what to wear and how to think while taking away your own ability to think critically for yourself.

The news programs are designed to keep us living in perpetual fear because when we live in fear, we move further away from our true spiritual essence. The use of fear also makes us more controllable as a population where we eventually give up our civil rights in exchange for perceived security.

The commercials are just as bad as any “programming”. Most TV commercials show extroverts who are specifically dressed in a certain way with clothing that appeals to your senses in subliminal ways.

5. Try to eliminate as much fluoride from your daily routine.

Not only does fluoride help to contribute to a more subservient population, it also calcifies your pineal gland, otherwise known as the “3rd eye“. Your pineal gland is a gateway to other dimensions, so if it is calcified, then you will be limiting your utmost ability for creative thought and expression as well as dimming your spiritual connection to Creator and your higher self.

The further you move away from spirituality, the easier it is for you to be controlled.

6. Research the detriments of vaccinations.

Please keep in mind that there is NO amount of mercury that is good for anyone, especially children!

7. Do NOT ingest any genetically modified foods (or processed foods)

There have been NO longitudinal studies on the effect of GMO’s on our bodies, so we are all literally guinea pigs being tested.

One thing you might want to consider is the poison that is built into specific foods, such as GMO corn. When a bug eats GMO corn, it explodes from the inside out because the BT Toxin is not in the husk of the corn, but it the corn, itself. Imagine what this corn is doing to you and your children?

Try to buy organic food or grow your own with organic heirloom seeds. When shopping at the grocery store, avoid just about all products in the middle aisles as they are generally all processed foods.

Do You Know Someone Who Is Hiding Their Spirituality?

8. Teach your children how to meditate.

Meditation has the potential to literally transform the world. In 1978, what is known as the “Maharishi Effect” a group of 7000 individuals over the course of 3 weeks were meditating in hopes of positively effecting the surrounding city. They were able to literally transform the collective energy of the city which reduced global crime rates, violence, and casualties during the times of their meditation by an average of 16%. Suicide rates and automobile accidents also were reduced with all variables accounted for. In fact, there was a 72% reduction in terrorist activity during the times at which this group was meditation.

When you meditate, you look within for answers instead of relying on other people’s opinions, whether religious, political or educational. The truth is ALWAYS within. Anything you have ever been taught has been something that was regurgitated by someone else. Look within and you will find the answers you are looking for.

Can you envision world without money?
If you can’t envision a world without money, then you will probably have a difficult time understanding the future, especially if you watch a lot of television.

In the future, when a child is asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” they will answer, “Me” and will have a concrete idea who “me” is versus the children who have been raised to worship the almighty dollar as they blindly follow the flock ahead of them through religious and educational institutions.

We have been brainwashed for ove
 
BUMP!

thread needs to stay on the front page as more posters on BGOL are finally coming out of character to reveal their true intentions
 
The pro-whites on BGOL actually think the caucasians are protesting over police brutality.

:lol:

these left wing cacs don’t give a shit about Floyd. if they did they would correct their rigged system.

And where are the so-called black men?
 
The pro-whites on BGOL actually think the caucasians are protesting over police brutality.

:lol:

these left wing cacs don’t give a shit about Floyd. if they did they would correct their rigged system.

And where are the so-called black men?

X, I've been reading sum of those replies!! And sume of those Kats not believing soros(I think that's his name) is backing that madness!! Bruh, the programming has a bigger hold that I thought.. X, when I was in my teens, we would tease those that would believe what they saw on tv!! Damn, the game has flip flopped and got Kats believing in the system and the players on tv!! I'm going to start that thread this weekend. Hopefully it will touch atleast 1/2 of the kats!! I'll get with you, a little later!! I got sumthing to share with you!! You might find it interesting..
 
It is really going on now. They recycle the same narratives. People don’t get these (Aubery and Floyd) were ritualistic assassinations.

Yeap, the same script every summer.. Same theme, damn near the same player, but different lead actors or actress!! How is it, only a handful of Kats see the madness being played out??
 
Yeap, the same script every summer.. Same theme, damn near the same player, but different lead actors or actress!! How is it, only a handful of Kats see the madness being played out??
Sacrifice season for Gaia occurs April - June

the cabalists are ramping it up because they need to implement their agenda by end of 2020 or the great awakening will manifest. It is already happening as it was prophecy and must come to fruition.

the masses really have no idea how serious it is right now because the whites are more fractured than they’ve been since they stole our homeland and their empire is falling.

trump is supported because he represents white male patriarchy and if he is allowed to fail, the civil war will commence.

the irony is the pro-whites, like many on BGOL, are likely to be hurt most due to collateral damage but that’s what happens when you are a Luciferian

:smh:
 
Sacrifice season for Gaia occurs April - June

the cabalists are ramping it up because they need to implement their agenda by end of 2020 or the great awakening will manifest. It is already happening as it was prophecy and must come to fruition.

the masses really have no idea how serious it is right now because the whites are more fractured than they’ve been since they stole our homeland and their empire is falling.

trump is supported because he represents white male patriarchy and if he is allowed to fail, the civil war will commence.

the irony is the pro-whites, like many on BGOL, are likely to be hurt most due to collateral damage but that’s what happens when you are a Luciferian

:smh:

You got that right brotha!!!

Bruh, something just don't feel right!! I can't put my finger on it, but I feel it!!
 
Throw Away Your Television

The only thing more banal than rappers spitting rhymes about their new 50” plasma screen is smug hipsters who won’t shut up about the fact that they don’t even own a TV, man. I apologise in advance for the sanctimony you are about to receive. The insidiousness of mass media is a tired trope. But like so many clichés, if you dig deep enough, there’s a lustrous pearl of truth nestled amongst the old shellfish guts.
It’s not that TV is inherently bad. In the barren wasteland of over-saturated, collagen-plumped dross, palm-fringed oases are popping up everywhere. We’re getting the most electrifying shows ever created, with genuinely transgressive themes, gorgeous cinematography, fingernail-bitingly strong plot lines. Hollywood, eat your heart out! The danger is that TV is too good. The blue meth Bryan Cranston’s cooking in Breaking Bad symbolises this new formula: So perfectly pure, such incredible quality, you can’t possibly just have one hit.
TV wriggles into our heads and changes our very physiology; our brain function, our reward systems, our moods. The memetic parasite manipulating the pleasure levers has been so wildly successful that it’s woven itself into the fabric of our culture, making it almost impossible to catch a glimpse of its true, Lovecraftian form. Sometimes the most obvious realities are the hardest to discuss, hence our strange cultural blind spot: with thousands of TV critics filling column inches and every corner of the internet, hardly anyone actually criticises TV.
The big picture
The human race’s single biggest pursuit is now watching TV. Nielsen reports the average American soaks up more than 34 hours each week. We’ve had the occasional moral panic about this over the years, but our hearts aren’t really in it. On the whole, society seems to have shrugged its shoulders and flipped to another channel.
Perhaps the lack of introspection comes from the assumption that we, as individuals, are not part of this phenomenon. How much TV do you think you watch? Great – now double it. When British researchers asked 25 to 34-year-olds to estimate how much time they spent watching TV, the respondents guessed 15 to 16 hours a week, on average. The meter-reading results for the same demographic provide the unvarnished truth. Once you strip away forgetfulness and wishful thinking, the real figure was 28 hours a week.[1]
Zooming out to come face-to-face with the big picture is confronting. Nielsen’s 34 hours a week becomes 1768 hours a year; the equivalent of a red-eyed binge lasting 10 and a half weeks. It’s as if you settled down in front of the set in late January, and didn’t stop watching to eat or sleep until your zombie-fied body finally arose from the tomb on Easter Sunday. This stupendous time sink is one of the biggest costs associated with TV dependency, which we’ll come back to soon.
One quick snip
First, a brief look at the financials. Unless you’re one of those people with a TV in every room, the upfront cost isn’t a big deal. Consumer electronics are cheap as chips. The real cost is in cable and subscription services, with all their associated taxes, sneaky fees, and add-ons.
Cutting cable saves the average American $1200 a year, which is impressive, but not life-changing on the face of it. This is where the power of compound interest comes in. If you invested the savings, it’s a decision worth $17,000 over 10 years, and a cool $1 million over an adult lifetime. In conjunction with a raft of other small lifestyle tweaks, you can imagine how this becomes truly transformative – the sort of savings freight train that can turn cubicle slaves into retirees by their early 30s. I know this stuff works because I’ve used it to change the course of my own life, albeit in a less spectacular fashion.
If you’re trying to fix your finances, pay TV is low-hanging fruit. It falls outside the daily battle of forcing yourself to abstain from a treat or resist impulse buys, which constantly drains your limited pool of willpower. When the reservoir runs dry – and it will – you’ll inevitably give in to temptation. With cable-cutting, one quick snip does the trick. You only have to muster enough willpower to make the decision once, and it continues to enrich you forever.
Of course, watching free-to-air TV is no panacea. If you ever wondered how a late-night TV binge can somehow turn you into the sort of dribbling vegetable who can’t stop watching Infomercials, it’s because the features of the medium can have a mesmerising effect (more on this later): Yes… I would like to make three easy payments of $37.99. Yes… please upgrade me to the bonus seven-piece apple corer set.

I was going to put a satirical example here, but the reality is much, much more insane than anything I could come up with.
Early research suggested TV induce alpha waves in the brain, making people lethargic and suggestible. At the same time, beta waves associated with paying attention were supposedly blunted. This brainwashing theory remains very popular with conspiracy theorists, but it’s no longer well-supported. Nevertheless, the tinfoil-hat wearers’ general point is correct – there’s definitely something untoward going on. In a recent study, neuroscientists found prolonged TV viewing changed children’s brains in ways that lowered verbal IQ. Other studies have linked TV with everything from antisocial behavior to obesity to diabetes to mental health problems. For each additional hour of television a week watched in childhood, chances of developing symptoms of depression increase by 8 percent.
Forever alone
“It is only a slight exaggeration to say that happiness is the experience of spending time with people you love and who love you.”
— Daniel Kahneman

We live in an increasingly lonely and atomised society, subject to unprecedented psychic misery at a time of unprecedented prosperity. This paradox is explained by two parallel forces. The first is the ‘waning of the commons’ – a breakdown of traditional family structures, of belief in God, of nationalism – in short, the things in which humans have historically found a sense of purpose that transcends their own lives[2]. As these collective myths crumble, the void has been filled by the rise of extreme individualism, beamed out in HD clarity through the TV set. There are no gods, no objective moral truths, no borders. Who cares what your parents say, or the village elders? Do whatever you want! Be yourself! You’re unique – and you’re all alone in the universe.
It’s no surprise that those afflicted by this existential malaise seek solace in the TV. For the vast majority of our evolutionary history, we lived in small, tightly-knit groups. We still have about 150 slots for social relationships, and researchers have found we’ll fill any vacancies with celebrities and TV stars. We genuinely feel like we know them, which helps explain why there’s an outpouring of grief every time a star – a perfect stranger to her hordes of adoring fans – shuffles off the mortal coil.
Witness the endless quizzes along the lines of: ‘Which Pretty Little Liars character would be your BFF’. Harmless fun? Or symptomatic of something broken within ourselves? David Foster Wallace – no stranger to the comforts of the TV set – worried about interactions with real human beings replaced by the the “fake, passive one-way street” of pseudo-relationships with 2D characters inside the box. It’s a vicious cycle, he observed; the more you retreat from society, the less incentive you have to cultivate the real-life connections that are so crucial to mental health.
As we condition ourselves to loneliness, it becomes a second shadow that follows us everywhere we go. Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and media researcher Robert Kubey tracked the experience of TV viewers through each domain of life: Do they dislike being with people more? Are they more alienated from work?
What we found nearly leaped off the page at us. Heavy viewers report feeling significantly more anxious and less happy than light viewers do in unstructured situations, such as doing nothing, daydreaming or waiting in line.
It’s still up for debate whether TV makes us depressed, antisocial and unhealthy, or if people who are miserable, lonely and sedentary gravitate toward watching TV in the first place. Csikszentmihalyi and other researchers suggest it’s mostly the latter. However, they say it’s not a simple case of either/or. Even if TV isn’t the root cause of the unhappiness in our lives, it’s bad medicine.
The Path of Least Resistance
“Too many vacations that last too long, too many movies, too much TV, too much video game playing – too much undisciplined leisure time in which a person continually takes the course of least resistance – gradually wastes a life. It ensures that a person’s capacities stay dormant, that talents remain undeveloped, that the mind and spirit become lethargic and that the heart is unfulfilled.”
— Stephen Covey

Within moments of pushing the power button, viewers are flooded with feelings of relaxation. Because it happens so quickly, they’re conditioned to associate TV viewing with rest and lack of tension.
Leisure time is good for us, but not all leisure was created equal. Once the screen goes blank, the positive feelings dissipate, and stress sets in. This sort of pleasure offers little lasting satisfaction. We quickly adapt to each new thrill and have to seek out the next bigger and better thing; permanently pounding away on the hedonic treadmill just to stand in place.
Csikszentmihalyi’s most famous work describes the ‘flow’ state – full immersion in a specific task, which creates immense joy and life satisfaction. Passive leisure, like TV-watching, is not fertile ground for flow. Positive psychology research suggests one of the keys to enduring happiness is to switch to ‘active leisure’; socialising with friends and family, cognitive activities including hobbies, games and learning, and sports and exercise.
Most of us claim to be far too busy for such trivial pursuits. That doesn’t jive with those pesky statistics, which suggest we’ll still find the time to indulge in 100,000 hours of TV-watching over the course of a lifetime. What happens if you repurpose even a fraction of that time towards active leisure?
Most skills take several thousand hours of deliberate practice to master.[3] In the space of one lifetime, we could become an accomplished pianist, a chess Grandmaster, a competitive tennis player, proficient in a second language, a chef, a published author, a carpenter, a programming whizz, a dedicated parent or family member, and a community leader.
Or we could watch a whole lot of TV.
This astronomical opportunity cost is what really terrifies me. Even if TV doesn’t actively harm us, it’s a thief of time – the only non-renewable resource we have. It prevents you from doing the sort of deep work that will set you apart in the fragmented attention economy[4], pulls you away from real relationships and community, atrophies the attention needed to maintain a healthy body, and hamstrings growth and personal development.
It’s not your fault
Every successful parasite – be it a biological organism, or a memetic mind-virus – is a master of exploiting the physiology of its host.
In my experience, turning off the TV is easier said than done. Guided by people and profits, it’s evolved over time to capture our attention as efficiently and ruthlessly as possible.
One of our most primal evolutionary quirks is a sensitivity to sudden movement and sound. If those rustling bushes conceal a saber-toothed lion, that’s going to ruin our whole day. The simple features of television – cuts, edits, zooms, sudden noises – activate this ‘orienting response’, which makes it difficult to tear our eyes away from the screen. If you’ve ever felt mesmerised by an episode of Hannibal, it’s not just because of Mads Mikkelsen’s hypnotic charms.
Then there’s the content. The nail-biting anxiety of a cliffhanger ending goes deeper than you might think. Your amygdala – the most ancient part of the brain – doesn’t know the difference between TV and real life. There’s a polar bear! And a black smoke monster! And a nuclear explosion! Not knowing what’s going to happen stresses you out, releasing a flood of cortisol. Suddenly, you’re wide awake. It’s 2am and you promised yourself this was the last episode… and the binge continues.
Finally, there’s the technology. When you login to a service like Netflix, all you see is a simple user interface. What you can’t see is that every last pixel has been A/B tested to capture your attention for as long as possible: auto-playing videos, the recommendation algorithm, entire seasons uploaded in one stroke. Tech firms employ some of the smartest people on the planet, and they’re using the full force of their intellects to hotwire the buttons in our reptilian lizard brains.
TV addiction: No mere metaphor
The news media bombards us with irresponsible stories shrieking that everything from carbs to sunshine to cupcakes are ‘as addictive as cocaine‘. Fidget spinners are probably the equivalent of black-tar heroin. Of course, this boy-who-cried-wolf schtick makes healthy-minded skeptics less inclined to believe anything is addictive, which is worrying.
Kubey and Csikszentmihalyi say the term ‘TV addiction’ is imprecise and laden with value judgments, but it captures the essence of a very real phenomenon.[5]
Dependence is characterised by criteria that include:
  • Spending a great deal of time using the substance
  • Using it more often than intended
  • Thinking about reducing use
  • Making repeated unsuccessful efforts to reduce use
  • Giving up important social, family or occupational activities to use it
  • Reporting withdrawal symptoms when one stops using it
Sounds familiar to me.
Clearly, lots of people are able to watch a bit of TV quite happily. Perhaps they don’t tick any of these boxes at all. There are plenty of benign ‘addictions’ too – exercise, stamp-collecting. So, how to tell if something is malignantly addictive? For David Foster Wallace, the fundamental distinction is that it causes real problems for the addict, while offering itself as relief from the very problems it causes.
Breaking the habit
If you do think you have a problem, here’s the five-step program I’m using with some success:
  1. Get it out of the bedroom
    The brain is plastic. If you watch TV before you fall asleep, eventually you condition yourself so that you can only fall asleep once you’ve watched TV.
  2. Limit it to the weekend
    Two days a week is better than seven. Some people allow themselves to binge guilt-free on the weekends, so they can reserve the working week for more productive activities.
  3. Make it a social event
    Think Game of Thrones viewing parties. If you schedule your TV time to be with other people, you can watch more actively and get some of that sweet, sweet human contact.
  4. Consume deliberately
    Instead of flicking on the TV as a matter of course, consciously curate the shows worthy of your attention. I use reviews and the recommendations of friends to filter the crème de la crème, and only watch that: You will wrest Rick and Morty away from me over my cold, dead body. Anecdotally, people report getting a lot more satisfaction out of watching a few hours of amazing TV on Sunday then they do by passively watching 20-30 hours throughout the week.
  5. Tie your hands
    I owned a TV up until a year ago, but it was a dumb box, unconnected from cable or network. The only time I could use it was for deliberate consumption, by plugging in my laptop. That still leaves the laptop itself. I’ve found sheer willpower is not enough – I have to set up defences against my future self. The StayFocusd browser extension has been life-changing. Now I can ban myself from accessing certain sites for more than a certain time per day, block them altogether, or limit them to certain days of the week.

Why – yes, yes I should!Double standards
If you eat the entire tray of cupcakes you made for the bake sale, spend every night engrossed in silicon-swollen debauchery, or hit the bottle so hard you wake up not knowing who you are, you’re hardly going to rush out and tell everyone. Rightly or wrongly, we stigmatise over-indulgence.
TV addiction isn’t frowned upon. Instead, it’s practically a badge of honour. Binge watching an entire season of The Walking Dead might have turned you into a dead-eyed zombie, but it’s the sort of feat that most people wouldn’t think twice about publicising to their friends or social media feeds. Maybe there’s a shred of self-deprecation involved, but it’s always the sort of airy ‘aw shucks’ confession made with outstretched palms and a bemused grin.
We’ve all been there, which makes TV addiction incredibly relatable. If everyone was an alcoholic, no doubt we’d all swap hilarious tales about getting blackout drunk for the 9th night in a row, and commiserate with one another about how our relationships are falling to pieces.
Those cultural norms have to come from somewhere. I’m pointing the finger at the TV-fawning media, which not only enable our addiction, but actively encourage and promote it. Witness the thousands of variations on the theme ‘TV Shows You Must Binge-Watch Right Now’, pumped out by everyone from Buzzfeed to The Guardian. All of this is part of the broader Girls-style glamorisation of tragic, in which it’s cool to be a hot mess, and privileged twenty-somethings fall over one another to tell everyone how dysfunctional and zany their lives are.
Everyone worships something
As the West grows more secular, people love to make fun of cosmic Jewish zombies, white-bearded sky-fathers, and a certain prophet-who-must-never-be-drawn. How could anyone be so backwards as to kneel before these false idols? Before leveling such accusations, we should first remove the deus ex machina from our own eye. Maybe our more enlightened descendants will be just as baffled by our awe-filled devotion to the god from the machine.
Billions of acolytes take to their chambers every night, bathed in blue light for hours, alone.
Could we all be wrong about a cultural practice so universal it has engulfed the entire planet? It’s possible. History is littered with examples of reprehensible ideas that everyone thought were totally OK at the time. I don’t know if future historians will look back at the Netflix Epoch with horror, but I think, at the very least, they’ll be confused: How could we squander the immense wealth and opportunities laid before us, to end up in such misery?
To paraphrase David Foster Wallace, there’s no such thing as atheism in the day-to-day trenches of modern life. Everyone worships something: The only choice we get is what to worship. The real benefit of choosing something spiritual, some ethical or existential code that strives and strains toward a higher meaning, is that anything else will eat you alive.
For Wallace, the insidious things about those other forms of worship – power, money, beauty, pleasure, the self – is not that they’re inherently evil; but that they’re unconscious. We slip into worshiping them day by day, without even being aware of what we’re doing. We become lords of our own “tiny, skull-sized kingdoms”, but we never manage to rise above our default settings.
I’m writing this essay not as a cured man, but as a patient lying in the hospital bed next to you, hoping to pass on some remedies that have proved useful[6]. Our convalescence will benefit from a few shared commitments: Let’s do the hard work. Let’s be careful not to glamorise the tragic and the infantile. Let’s stop taking the course of least resistance; the path that atrophies us into lethargic ghouls shuffling through life on autopilot. Maybe we’re not strong enough yet. At the very least; let’s give a name to the parasite of passivity that has ingratiated itself into our gray matter – I see you! I defy you! – and force it out into the sunlight.
 
Well, no, actually. That would be the bible. TV (and all media) simply spread the white supremacist message.
 
Hmm?? Ain't nobody listening!! Unbelievable!!




Mind Control is Real: United States Patent 6506148 B2 Confirms Human Nervous System Can be Manipulated Through Electromagnetic Fields from Monitors

Manostaxx
The text that follows is owned by the site above referred.
Here is only a small part of the article, for more please follow the link
SOURCE: http://anonhq.com/mind-control-real...-manipulated-electromagnetic-fields-monitors/
The subject of mind control has been keenly contested for some time now. Mind or thought control is broadly defined as human subjects being indoctrinated in a way that causes an impairment of autonomy – the inability to think independently, and a disruption of beliefs and affiliations.
Mind control was initially considered a mere conspiracy theory. During the early days of the term, its adherents believed a human’s mind could be controlled through the dissemination of propaganda messages to suit the person disseminating the message. Even media theories such as Agenda Setting, Framing and Priming supported the notion that the human mind could be controlled to think in a certain direction the media wanted. This, in theory, becomes possible through the messages the media disseminate to the public. As the media constantly bombard people with a specific message or idea, over time, people become addicted to it, adopting it as a reality. Of course, if this happens, it means the thinking faculties of people have been altered.
However, mind control moved from mere communication messages of the media to something deeper after a shocking revelation. In 1999, the forensic psychologist Dick Anthony revealed that the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) invented damning brainwashing techniques against communism during the Korean War.
Anthony’s revelation led to further scrutiny of the CIA. It later emerged that the United States government had been experimenting on how to control the human mind immediately after the end of the Second World War. In 1945, the government secretly recruited many Nazi scientists, some of whom had been identified and prosecuted as war criminals during the Nuremberg Trials. The recruitment was code-named Operation Paperclip. The objective of Operation Paperclip was to tap into the knowledge of these Nazi criminal scientists. The Nazis were told that if they would agree and work for the United States government, the government would protect them from prosecution. The Nazis agreed rather than being sent to the gallows.
After recruiting them into the United States, the government used the Nazis in many highly clandestine experiments. One of such experiments was how to control the human mind through technology and science. With the help of the Nazis, in the 1950s, the CIA and the Defense Department conducted secret research codenamed MKULTRA. The project was later renamed Project ARTICHOKE. The purpose was to study mind control, interrogation, behavior modification and related topics.
When these secrets were made public, the CIA never contested them, except to say it discontinued the programs. But the big question here is: can we trust the CIA? What if they succeeded in inventing a technology to control the human mind with which we are unaware of?
In 2013, the BBC published an article titled “Are we close to making human ‘mind control’ a reality?” In the article, it was said that Rajesh Raoa, a researcher at the University of Washington, had succeeded in playing a computer game with his mind without using any physical controllers.
Mr Raoa’s invention convinced many researchers that mind control is no longer a conspiracy theory, that it is real. Some researchers expressed grave concerns about the invention of Raoa, saying it could lead to a Zombie apocalypse.
“When we have full links into the brain directly and you can control someone like a robot then we might have problems,” said Dr Ian Pearson, a futurologist with a background in science and engineering.
To further prove to you without any ambiguity that mind control is real, and that the technology to do the highly immoral, unethical and corrupt job is available, we look at something we have chanced upon on the internet.
We’ve come across scientific research published on the internet with patent number US 6506148 B2. It is titled “Nervous system manipulation by electromagnetic fields from monitors.”
The Abstract of the work reads: “Physiological effects have been observed in a human subject in response to stimulation of the skin with weak electromagnetic fields that are pulsed with certain frequencies near ½ Hz or 2.4 Hz, such as to excite a sensory resonance. Many computer monitors and TV tubes, when displaying pulsed images, emit pulsed electromagnetic fields of sufficient amplitudes to cause such excitation. It is therefore possible to manipulate the nervous system of a subject by pulsing images displayed on a nearby computer monitor or TV set. For the latter, the image pulsing may be imbedded in the program material, or it may be overlaid by modulating a video stream, either as an RF signal or as a video signal. The image displayed on a computer monitor may be pulsed effectively by a simple computer program. For certain monitors, pulsed electromagnetic fields capable of exciting sensory resonances in nearby subjects may be generated even as the displayed images are pulsed with subliminal intensity.”
According to the publication on Google, Hendricus G. Loos is the owner of the work. He filed the work in June 2001, but was published in January 2003. When we attempted to find more details on Mr Loos, we realized he isn’t popular on the internet, not even mentioned in Wikipedia. Few articles have been written about him. What we did find, however, is his work on the manipulation of the nervous system with electronic devices started in 1978, publishing nine works since.
Now, to put the work in a simple context, let’s consider a simple definition of the nervous system. According to neuroscientists, the human nervous system controls everything from breathing and producing digestive enzymes, to memory and intelligence. In fact, the central part of the nervous system is the brain.
If patent number US 6506148 B2 says that the nervous system can be manipulated by electromagnetic fields from monitors, need we not tell you that Your Mind is Being Manipulated with Monitors?
Especially televisions, they have become deadly weapons to us. From the recent WikiLeaks Vault 7 disclosure, it emerged how the CIA used Samsung smart TVs to spy on people.
From all indications, the United States government has secret technologies. The secret technologies are increasingly becoming embedded in most of the technology we use every day. This helps the United States government to maintain its hegemony over every being on this planet. The secret knowledge the Nazis had under Adolf Hitler is now in the hands of the United States, and is being put to use.
Our goal is to raise awareness. When we were investigating this issue, somebody told us it’s time to get rid of our TV sets. The person said the evidence is overwhelming. Truly, we are shocked by the available evidence. One important question we should be asking now is why is the mainstream media still silent on this issue? This tells you that the end goal of the media is never to educate and raise awareness. It is created and controlled by the elite to put us in the dark, so they can continue to profit from us.
From now on, never dismiss any conspiracy theory. Take your time to read about the theory and do a little research about it first. Research on such topics shouldn’t be difficult since we are in the Information Age.
As we end the write-up, Google US 6506148 B2. Spend some minutes to think. Tell us your thoughts below in the comment box. How can we free ourselves from this slavery and bondage?
This article (Mind Control is Real: United States Patent 6506148 B2 Confirms Human Nervous System can be Manipulated Through Electromagnetic Fields from Monitors) is a free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to the author and AnonHQ.com.
Supporting Anonymous’ Independent & Investigative News
 
X, I agree with you!! It. Should stay on the front!! But you know that won't happen!! However, I'm going to keep dropping things about the television every chance I get!!


It's no surprise the Fed government want everyone sitting in front of a 50"+ hdtv!! Or as close as a person can get to that tv!! Even when ur not looking at that tv... These folks don't care about ur entertainment need. All they care about is making sure the masses are getting that hidden subconscious mind message!! They. Have been flooding our minds since the 40s!!
 
We're being manipulated and it's been going on since the 40s!! Since we watch so much television and look at reading as the flu!! We're being misinformed and it happens when were 1st introduced to the television!!





US Patent 6506148 B2 Confirms Human Nervous System Manipulation Through Your Computer & TV




https://www.collective-evolution.co...ystem-manipulation-through-your-computer-tv/#
https://www.bgol.us/forum/whatsapp:...system-manipulation-through-your-computer-tv/

It’s hard to find any information at all on a one “Hendricus G. Loos,” despite the fact that he’s filed multiple patent applications, with success, for apparatuses that deal with the manipulation of the human nervous system via a computer screen or a television monitor. In the abstract, he explains the following,

“Physiological effects have been observed in a human subject in response to stimulation of the skin with weak electromagnetic fields that are pulsed with certain frequencies near ½ Hz or 2.4 Hz, such as to excite a sensory resonance. Many computer monitors and TV tubes, when displaying pulsed images, emit pulsed electromagnetic fields of sufficient amplitudes to cause such excitation. It is therefore possible to manipulate the nervous system of a subject by pulsing images displayed on a nearby computer monitor or TV set. For the latter, the image pulsing may be imbedded in the program material, or it may be overlaid by modulating a video stream, either as an RF signal or as a video signal. The image displayed on a computer monitor may be pulsed effectively by a simple computer program. For certain monitors, pulsed electromagnetic fields capable of exciting sensory resonances in nearby subjects may be generated even as the displayed images are pulsed with subliminal intensity.”
The concerning thing about this, as the patent application explains, is that even a very weak pulse can have adverse affects on the human nervous system.
He then goes on to describe that pulse variability and strength can be controlled through software, and explains how, with regards to a computer monitor, DVDs, video tapes and more, and also how it can be remotely controlled from another location.
Perhaps the most concerning part is this,
“Certain monitors can emit electromagnetic field pulses that excite a sensory resonance in a nearby subject, through image pulses that are so weak as to be subliminal. This is unfortunate since it opens a way for mischievous application of the invention, whereby people are exposed unknowingly to manipulation of their nervous systems for someone else’s purposes. Such application would be unethical and is of course not advocated. It is mentioned here in order to alert the public to the possibility of covert abuse that may occur while being online, or while watching TV, a video, or a DVD.”

The application is full of cited examples that the “nervous system of a subject can be manipulated through electromagnetic field pulses emitted by a nearby CRT or LCD monitor which displays images with pulsed intensity.”
Our nervous system basically controls everything in our body, including the brain. It’s a network of nerves and cells that carry messages to and from the brain and spinal cord to various parts of the body, and it’s no secret that the United States government, among others, have a long history of experimenting on human beings for mind control purposes. Could television be a mind-control tactic? It would explain why so many people believe stories and explanations of events presented to them by mainstream media, instantaneously, without even questioning.
In some cases, we are made to idolize what we see on T.V, like celebrities, and imitate behaviour and wants.
Sometimes, a perspective that’s backed by evidence, which completely counters the story and information we receive from mainstream media, is thrown into the “conspiracy realm.” This is dangerous, have we reached a point where our televisions are doing the thinking for us? Could they be using pulse techniques described above to influence our thoughts, behaviours and perceptions?
Given what we know about our governments and the unethical actions they’ve taken throughout history, it’s really not out of the question.
There is a reason why airplanes and hospitals ban the use of cell phones, it’s because their electromagnetic transmissions interfere with critical electrical devices. The brain is no different, it’s a bioelectric organ that’s extremely complex and generates electric fields. Scientists can actually control brain function with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), a technique that uses powerful pulses of electromagnetic radiation beamed into a person’s brain to jam or excite particular brain circuits.

This is the same type of thing described in the patent, so to what extent are our computer monitors and television screens doing this? This is why, for example, when somebody turns on their Sony Playstation, the screen warns them to read the important health information before playing. Research has also shown that simple cell phone transmissions can affect a person’s brainwaves quite significantly, which in turn leads to effects on their behaviour as well.
“Electromagnetic radiation can have an effect on mental behaviour when transmitting at the proper frequency.” – James Horne , from the Loughborough University Sleep Research Centre (source)
Not only this, but hundreds of scientists have come together, and are currently creating awareness on and petitioning the United Nations about the health effects of electromagnetic radiation. They’ve been linked to cancer, and have been shown to manipulate our DNA.
The initiative was started by Dr. Martin Blank, Ph.D., from the Department of Physiology and Cellular Biophysics at Colombia University, who has joined a group of scientists from around the world making an international appeal to the United Nations regarding the dangers associated with the use of various electromagnetic emitting devices, like cells phones and WiFi.
“Putting it bluntly they are damaging the living cells in our bodies and killing many of us prematurely,”said Dr. Martin Blank, from the Department of Physiology and Cellular Biophysics at Columbia University, in a video message.
“We have created something that is harming us, and it is getting out of control. Before Edison’s light bulb there was very little electromagnetic radiation in our environment. The levels today are very many times higher than natural background levels, and are growing rapidly because of all the new devices that emit this radiation.”

This information is a separate effect on the body from mind control, but it’s still important to mention and bring light to.
Not only are our electronic devices monitoring, watching, and recording everything we do, they may also be influencing our behaviour, perceptions, thoughts and feelings on a large-scale as well, but who really knows if “the powers that be” are using these devices for mind control, in the same way they use them for surveillance.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not hard to see how corporations use television to influence our behaviour and perceptions, but perhaps they, and other authorities, are changing things around, as mentioned above, and manipulating our nervous systems purposefully for their own personal gain, and knowingly do so.
Chamath Palihapitiya, the vice-president for user growth at Facebook prior to leaving the company in 2011, said, “The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops that we created are destroying how society works. . . . No civil discourse, no cooperation, misinformation, mistruth.” So, we are seeing a similar type of thing there as well.”
When it comes to mind control, project MK ultra was the CIA’s baby. It’s commonly believed that it was only LSD that was used on human test subjects, but that was just one program. As the US Supreme Court brought to light in 1985, MK ultra consisted of 162 different secret projects that were indirectly financed by the CIA, and contracted out to several universities, research foundations and similar institutions.” The majority of the MK Ultra records were actually destroyed, and have never been seen.
Perhaps television programming was a part of the MK Ultra program?
Concluding Comments
It’s hard to fathom the idea that we could be manipulated and used so much, for the purposes of profit, control, and other agendas, but it’s a reality we have to face. There are limitless examples of this throughout history all the way up to the modern-day, and all aspects of human life seem to be controlled by a select group of very few people from health, to finance, education, entertainment, big food and more. We’ve become tools for their use, and our thoughts, behaviours, and perceptions, for the most part, seem to be the same. If they’re a little different, or don’t really fit the frame, one can instantly be labelled, or become a ‘social outcast.’
There is no doubt in my mind that our Television, and other electronic devices has detrimental health effects, and that they do/can effect our nervous system in several different ways. The science on this is clear, but what is not so clear is the idea that there are others using these techniques, knowingly, to control our minds.
Based on all of my research into mind control ,and the actions our governments have taken and to what extent they’ve taken them to, I would be surprised if Television was not apart of the MK ultra program.
All and all, it’s another great reason to spend less time in-front of your screen, and more time with a book or spending time outside, or with family and friends. If there is one thing that’s for sure, our screens are detrimental to our health in several different ways.
 
Hmm,, people still sitting in front of the television!! The conditioning and programming agenda is still moving on ,,,, huh????
 
How the Media Manipulates You Without Your Knowing
Unconscious tactics guaranteed to win you over (and how you can use them too)





I have developed a 7-step process that sheds scientific light on how we become influenced. My first post introduced Step 1 - Interrupt the Pattern, i.e., when we are surprised by the unexpected it alerts our attention, directing our focus towards an incoming message. But “interrupts” also prepare us for possible threats. We have evolved to avoid harm, which makes us very skittish buyers.

So the next step to winning people over requires opening their minds to new possibilities, a mental state that only comes with an easing of tensions and the building of trust. Before you can get people excited about your pitch, you need to first ease their apprehensions by engendering receptivity to your overture.


This is Step 2 - Create Comfort and here are three of the most powerful ways to do just that.

Make them laugh. Ever wonder why humor is so prevalent in advertising? What about those canned laugh tracks that have been used for more than half a century, punctuating every other line in sitcom TV shows?

Laughter is essentially social bonding communication. It’s akin to saying, “I like you” or “I want you to like me.” According to the neuroscientist Robert Provine, laughter is not really primarily about humor but rather social relationships, as it tends to disappear when there is no audience. It is also an innate, cross-cultural response triggered unconsciously, which is why it is so hard to fake real laughter.


Shared laughter synchronizes the brains of speaker and listener toward greater emotional attunement, the hallmark of successful communication. Laughter also functions to release tension by releasing the hormone oxytocin which fires the trust circuits within prospective mates, friends or high status business associates. This explains why partners in love laugh so often, and why everyone laughs when the boss intimates the slightest hint of a joke.

Mirror their behavior. Are you surprised by the fact that reality television now accounts for a majority of network programming? Or are you curious to know why your Internet experience increasingly feeds back to you the types of things or sites you’ve engaged with in the past?

Marketers have learned that humans are programmed to respond favorably to the familiar and the like-minded, such as ordinary people like you and me in reality shows, or others who share similar interests online. Research has even shown that Marshas prefer Mars bars instead of Snickers.

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Our social brains were not designed to work in isolation but rather in a back and forth looping process with the minds of other individuals, unconsciously inclining us to transcend the boundaries of our own being. We are hardwired to synchronize with similar others through our mirror neurons, which are involved in processing empathy and imitation. Activation of the mirror neurons allows us to vicariously envision and feel ourselves engaged in their behaviors and feelings. Studies have revealed that the happier couples are, the greater their facial similarity resulting from the parallel sculpting of facial muscles over years of conditioning, reinforced by their shared emotions and similar expressions.

Mimicry can even persuade customers to fork over more money. Research by Dutch psychologist, Rick van Baaren, showed that waitresses who mirrored their customers yielded 140 percent larger tips and that these customers were often unable to consciously notice when they were being imitated.

Be congruent. Have you ever noticed how leading marketers have a clearly identifiable look and feel to all of their advertising? Or how a political candidate becomes toast if he waffles even slightly on an important issue?


Harmonious connection to people and brands is often determined by the extent to which there is alignment of their words, appearance, behavior, and deeds. And when companies or people are out of sync with their own promises others instinctively develop a feeling of distrust that reflexively undermines their intentions.

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Our brains do this by unconsciously scanning for contrast and inconsistencies in the information being interpreted, equipping us with built-in B.S. meters that communicate the perils of deception and the treachery of cheaters. When things don’t add up, or something just doesn’t feel right, it is because the brain is simultaneously parallel processing multiple channels of sensory information. When there is a mismatch of signals being sent, stress chemicals like cortisol are released, warning us to beware.


It’s like when you make eye contact with a stranger on the street who looks normal enough as he acknowledges you pleasantly, yet something feels inexplicably askew. Perhaps it’s a faint twitch, an avoidance of eye contact or a fleeting inconsistent micro-expression of emotion that gives you a somewhat alarming gut feeling. Sure enough, he approaches you and asks: “Can I borrow a dollar?”


If you want people to buy what you are selling, you need to become aware of the many hidden signals you send to others.

And to learn more about the many ways marketers mold us into customers, check out my new book at:
 
10 Ways the Media Manipulates Our Opinions

Almost 30 years ago, Noam Chomsky, a famous intellectual, wrote about the manipulation strategies the media uses. It's been quite some time since then, and now we have things like the internet, Twitter, and Facebook, so the media has many more ways to influence us. Unfortunately, the influence is not always positive.
Bright Side will tell you about the methods newsmakers use to manipulate our consciousness.
Create a diversion.


Creating a diversion is the media's favorite strategy. Important information isn't noticed amongst a huge number of smaller stories. The internet didn't solve this problem: we constantly switch our attention to funny pictures and jokes. The only difference is that today we at least have a choice: you can easily filter the information you want to receive to avoid unimportant information.
Exaggerate a problem.

Sometimes an imaginary or exaggerated problem causes very serious reactions from society. In 2016, NASA published an article saying that if astrology were scientific, the zodiac signs would change their positions. For example, Virgo would become Leo. Cosmopolitan presented this as a scientific discovery and claimed that 80% of people would have to change their zodiac sign. The article spread so fast that NASA had to publish a retraction.

Gradual strategy


In order to form a certain opinion, you can publish materials on the topic gradually. This strategy is used to form an image of a person, a product, or an event. For example, in the media of different countries, only certain food brands are mentioned. The brightest example of using the media for promotion was probably the popularization of smoking in the middle of the 20th century.
Postponing strategy

To convince people to make hard or unpopular decisions, the media can present them as "painful, but absolutely necessary." And then they tell people that these decisions need to be made tomorrow, not today. Future sacrifices are easier than ones you need to make today. Examples include independence referendums or dictatorships in developing countries, based on propaganda and authoritarianism.

Being very kind

Some advertisements use language, arguments, symbols, and intonations for children. Such communication makes people less critical. Brands use the imperative form, and they aim for the simplest feelings and impulses. The media has a patronizing tone of voice because it definitely knows more than we do.
More emotions, less thinking


News and emotions always go together, and there is nothing good about it. Emotions don't let you perceive facts critically and objectively. They block the rational part of your mind. This often leads to a distortion of reality. This is the reason why the term "information warfare" is not forgotten but is actually often used. Users from all over the world try to figure out how to steer clear of it.


Keeping people uninformed
The media and the government can manipulate a society if the society doesn't understand the techniques. And this happens due to a lack of education. Chomsky thought that access to information was very different for the elite and the ordinary people. However, times have changed, and the digital era gives us a chance to find any information we need. And education level can't be a factor here.
Encouraging people to like mediocre productsp


The media is totally content to tell people that it's cool to be stupid, vulgar, and rude. This is why we have so many TV shows, sitcoms, movies with sequels and prequels, tabloids, and so on. They are not just for recreational purposes but also for switching attention away from truly serious problems.

The media is totally content to tell people that it's cool to be stupid, vulgar, and rude. This is why we have so many TV shows, sitcoms, movies with sequels and prequels, tabloids, and so on. They are not just for recreational purposes but also for switching attention away from truly serious problems.
MAKE THE PEOPLE FEEL GUILTY


The point of this strategy is to make people blame themselves for local and global problems. People blame themselves for wars that were started by governments, not them. In 2014, a photo of a boy who was lying between his parents' graves went viral. The photo was presented as a photo from a war zone. In fact, the photo was part of a project that was dedicated to love for relatives. The author of the picture was shocked by the way it was used in the media.
Knowing more about people than they know about themselves


The media often tries to know everything about everyone, but they often cross the line. In 2005, the British tabloid News of the World was caught wiretapping celebrities, politicians, and even members of the royal family. The information that was received in this disgusting way was used to write exclusive articles that gained a lot of readers. The lawsuits from celebrities and ordinary people ended with the closing of the tabloid, which had to pay huge amounts of compensation.
 
one of the hardest parts of changing things is that television is very addictive. I'll admit to having a dependency myself.

there are days where I can break away from the tube or my video games and do something productive, but too often after a hard day of work or and especially stressful occurrence I'm at the house constantly mining YouTube for new content. Even if it's not any good. Too often thinking feels like the enemy of sanity.

The biggest problem is that television is the only narcotic that you consume by looking.

An alcoholic can watch somebody drink a shot of whiskey, but as long as they don't drink any themselves everything's cool. However, when I see somebody looking at a glowing screen that glow drives my eyeballs in too and next thing you know I've relapsed. And let's be real, these screens are everywhere, especially when you have other people living in your house.

with that said, I've never crashed the car while under the influence of television. Never stole from anyone or whored myself out to get a fix, yet I also know I have severely limited my life by wasting all of that time and attention on it.

I also know that I'm not the only one. so I asked, what can we do to put these destructive influences behind us?
 
one of the hardest parts of changing things is that television is very addictive. I'll admit to having a dependency myself.

there are days where I can break away from the tube or my video games and do something productive, but too often after a hard day of work or and especially stressful occurrence I'm at the house constantly mining YouTube for new content. Even if it's not any good. Too often thinking feels like the enemy of sanity.

The biggest problem is that television is the only narcotic that you consume by looking.

An alcoholic can watch somebody drink a shot of whiskey, but as long as they don't drink any themselves everything's cool. However, when I see somebody looking at a glowing screen that glow drives my eyeballs in too and next thing you know I've relapsed. And let's be real, these screens are everywhere, especially when you have other people living in your house.

with that said, I've never crashed the car while under the influence of television. Never stole from anyone or whored myself out to get a fix, yet I also know I have severely limited my life by wasting all of that time and attention on it.

I also know that I'm not the only one. so I asked, what can we do to put these destructive influences behind us?

Danny, I'll give you a few hints, that you can try!! Bruh, just try turn it off ?? It might take a few tries, but start slow and slowly keep it off.. And work your way off!! It took me 5 to 6yrs to remove it.. Ive been caught focusing the tube, at Dr office and other places!!
 
Television is one hell of a tool!!




Reality TV Is Manipulating You More Than You Think


You probably think that you're a savvy viewer who watches a lot of reality television programs and knows what's real and what's "reality," right? Well, according to a new book from one of the people behind the camera, even the simplest tricks are enough to fool the audience.
Troy Devolld is an Emmy-winning reality show producer who's worked on The Osbournes, Dancing with the Stars, Surreal Life, Flipping Out and several other shows. Now he's written a book that shows you just how the reality sausage gets made. Sure we all know that some footage is fake and things are massaged, but finally there's an insider to let us know just how it goes down.
Here's an excerpt from Reality TV: An Insider's Guide to TV's Hottest Market which comes out August 1 where Devolld looks at a standard home improvement show and shows us how time is compressed, the stakes are raised, and perception is altered with a simple voiceover.

I'm not about to try to convince you that every word and action in a reality show is scripted. It's just not. Ever. Even the most heavily "produced" shows have some naturally occurring elements.
The recipe for every reality show is different. Sometimes writing and content manipulation are applied as sparingly as one would sprinkle a strong spice, and other times they're the main ingredients. Some shows follow a natural timeline and endeavor to play reality straight, in which case the story team's focus is applied to the compression of time. Other programs shred content like a salad shooter, stitching together bits of dialogue and action, repurposing scenes left and right.
There is no reality show I'm aware of that's comprised of a straight-up, uncut piece of source footage. Someone's there, pulling strings behind the scenes to at least some extent, on every reality show there's ever been, compressing time and performing myriad other duties to make the end product more engaging and entertaining.
Why do we hesitate, then, to acknowledge the work of storytellers in the reality genre? If real life doesn't happen in thirty and sixty minute increments complete with ad breaks, how can there not be some kind of creative work going on behind the scenes?
That, friends, is a mystery so easily solved there's no need to call in Scooby Doo and the Mystery Crew to investigate. Reality shows have writers and producers (with unusual job titles) that all endeavor to shape story and bring you the most realistic end product they can… a passable imitation of life.
But how does it all come together? Here's a simple exercise that'll help you to understand the basics.
In high school, you may have peeked inside a frog or two in biology class. Ages ago, frogs became a standard tool for basic anatomical study due to the fact that their physiology makes them easier to dissect than most other types of animals. More pointedly, our little green friends have the misfortune of being comprised of easily identifiable guts.
In the world of reality television, basic cable home-improvement shows are my first choice as "lab frogs" because most of them share a similar construction and aren't generally too complicated. They easily demonstrate concepts like compression of time, use of host voiceover and interview content to enhance stakes and that sort of thing.
Try this little exercise at home: Select any do-it-yourself home-improvement reality program and prepare to study two or three episodes. Make it easy on yourself and try a thirty minute program first.
Grab a stopwatch and a notepad, settle in and start viewing. Count the number of acts and jot down when certain events occur within the overall structure of the show.
During your review, keep an eye peeled for these specific moments:
• "Tonight On" tease (a glimpse ahead at the show you're about to see)
• Opening Title Sequence
• Introduction of the Host and Designer/Contractor
• Introduction of the Location, Homeowner and Project
• Consultation
• Commencement of Work
• Introduction of First Hurdle to the Project
• Overcoming of the First Hurdle
• Introduction of Second (Larger) Hurdle to the Project
• Overcoming of the Second Hurdle
• Completion of Project
• Review of Project
Amazing how all the action across all those episodes falls into pretty much the same order over the same number of acts every time, isn't it? How fortuitous that every week something naturally goes horribly awry with a budget or deadline not once but twice, the second time always worse than the first! Well, gang, if every fix or remodel was that problematic, pretty soon no one on Earth would let those shows' contractors and hosts anywhere near their gutted, mold-ridden run-down fixer-uppers. I know I wouldn't.
In all fairness, a few things are bound to go a little haywire any time you're doing a project with unskilled labor. But as to whether or not an entire project could be jeopardized by someone's wife leaving a hammer outside in the rain, well, our friends in the story department are just the ones to blame for putting more than a little spin on that action.
How much spin?
Just look at how much interview and voiceover drive the story along. Most of the heavy lifting in home improvement shows is done with those devices - voiceover and interview. Sure, a little gab throughout helps you to interpret actions that might be confusing without a little explanation, but moreover, it's that interview content and host copy that tells you how you should feel about what you're looking at.
For example… you've got a shot of a guy looking at a section of rotted flooring. Think about how much differently you'd react to hearing the host deliver each of these lines in conjunction with the image:
• "Ted sees this as a challenge. He'll have to replace the entire floor, and he can't wait to dig in with his new tools."
• "Termite damage means the cost of the project could triple. It's the beginning of the end for Ted's dream project."
• "The good news is, the termite damage is confined to a small area. Ted's lucked out this time."
Wait a minute… you mean you could be looking at something that happened naturally, but was narratively tailored to suit the broader storyline?
Eeyup.
Like I said… story is story, and story is written. Sort of.
 
Oh yeah!!! These people are fucking with our subconscious mind!! If you don't think so, I suggest you research the topic!! consumerism, materialism, obey and worshipping!! It gets better and they are are starting at a very, very young age!! Indoctrination starts before the kid talks!!
 
And the madness keeps on!! One-day folks will wise up and realize the dangers of the television!! It has nothing to do with you entertainment needs!! It's all about keeping those who view them in a dream state!!




The hypodermic effect: How propaganda manipulates our emotions
Isaac Nahon-Serfaty, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa
April 24, 2018 3.06pm EDT

The scandal surrounding the improper use of data by Cambridge Analytica and Facebook in the 2016 U.S. election is reminiscent of the old debates about propaganda and its ability to “violate the minds of the masses,” according to Sergei Tchakhotin, an expert in the study of Nazi propaganda.
The Russian sociologist said that the masses were subjected to a sophisticated machinery of manipulation that could, through the strategic use of radio, film and well-orchestrated performances, touch on and influence the basic instincts of Germans.
Decades later, we’re once again back discussing the manipulation of emotions, this time via social media platforms.
Nazi propaganda minister Dr. Joseph Goebbels is seen in this October 1938 photo as he speaks to members of the Nazi party. (AP Photo)
Of course, the communication ecosystem is very different from what existed for Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s propaganda minister. But the underlying principles for manipulating the masses do not seem to have changed much.
Reports indicate that Cambridge Analytica developed a methodology that allowed them to establish psychographic profiles of Facebook users, and thus push emotional buttons that could influence their political preferences and voting behaviour.
To some degree, this represents the return of what’s known as the hypodermic effect in which the audience falls “victim” to powerful media that have the ability to manipulate our emotions and shape our understanding of the world.
Research, however, indicates that how we respond to media does not adhere to what’s known as a stimulus-response causality. There are other factors that intervene in the way people use, perceive and process what they consume in the media. They are known as “mediations” that, according to the Spanish-Colombian professor Jesús Martín Barbero, are the different ways people interpret the messages conveyed by the media.
Using our data to influence us
But today, governments, corporations and political parties have the unprecedented ability to process a litany of data and then, through sophisticated algorithms, broadcast messages and images to influence an increasingly segmented audience.
One must ask, then, what role will Martín Barbero’s mediations — our cultural references, values, family, friends and other reference groups that influence our reading of the mediated messages — play in how we consume information and entertainment on social networks?
Are we condemned to live the “dystopian realism” presented by the British TV series Black Mirror in which digital media penetrate the intimacy of a human being too clumsy to resist the temptation of being manipulated, according to the show’s creator Charlie Brooker?
The debate about the influence of Facebook and unscrupulous companies like Cambridge Analytica reveals the importance of emotions not only in our private lives but also in our so-called “public lives” as citizens. The problem arises in terms not only of “emotional manipulation” but of the role emotions play in how we relate and understand the world around us.
As the neuroscientist Antonio Damasio recently said:
“Culture works by a system of selection similar to that of genetic selection, except that what is being selected is an instrument that we put into practice. Feelings are an agent in cultural selection. I think that the beauty of the idea is in seeing feelings as motivators, as a surveillance system, and as negotiators.”
If feelings are an integral part of this “cultural selection,” are we facing a shift in this sociocultural evolutionary process due to the “algorithmization” of emotions?
Is historian Yuval Noah Harari right when he says that “technological religion” — he calls it “dataism” — is transforming us in such a way that it will make the homo sapiens irrelevant and put the human being on the periphery in a world dominated by algorithms?
More isolation ahead?
These are complex questions that are difficult to answer.
In any case, it seems that our intellectual or even emotional laziness is transforming us into puppets of our emotions. Evidence is emerging that digital media is changing the configuration of our nervous system and our forms of socialization.
Sherry Turkle, a professor at MIT, observes in her book Alone together: Why we expect more from technology and less from each other that there are already signs of dissatisfaction among young people who are obsessed with their image on social media while losing the ability of introspection; mothers who feel that communication with their children via text messages is more frequent but less substantive; and Facebook users who think that the banalities they share with their “virtual friends” devalue the true intimacy between friends.
If virtual relations replace face-to-face contact, we may see more isolation, individualism and less social cohesion, which does not bode well for the survival of democracy.
It’s also likely that the expansion of social media does not make us more rational. Although we have access to more information and participate in more public debates about issues that affect us as individuals and as a society, that doesn’t mean we’re doing so more rationally or based on arguments that are scientifically factual.
The rise of religious fundamentalism, nationalism, of beliefs in all kinds of sects and New Age fashions are symptoms of a “return of sorcerers” or magical thinking in our digital society.
We deploy our egos on social media, sometimes with a compulsive need for recognition. This knowledge of our self, quantified in big data and transformed into affective algorithms, is exploited by corporations and political parties to give us, as Andy Warhol said, our 15 minutes of fame.
The sorcerers of propaganda are back — this time with more powerful means that their predecessors.
 
Danny, I'll give you a few hints, that you can try!! Bruh, just try turn it off ?? It might take a few tries, but start slow and slowly keep it off.. And work your way off!! It took me 5 to 6yrs to remove it.. Ive been caught focusing the tube, at Dr office and other places!!

So this morning I tried something new. No TV, internet or phone until 9 AM, roughly 3 hours after I get out of bed.

It hurt so bad I felt like crying

Right after my first coffee all of my evil thoughts, inadequacies, fears, past misdeeds great and small flooded my brain. The minor physical discomforts most men of my age get felt like real physical pain.

It eased a little about 8 am when I did my morning DJ library maintenance. ebbed a little further when I did my rehearsal/listening session. But when 9 AM came and I could check weather, news Facebook, bgol, email and Amazon it almost felt orgasmic.

This wake-up call not only confirmed what you said, it screamed it from the mountain top of my mind.

Now I'm on the way to work. Dying to play a game of spider solitaire. Hoping I can make this work tomorrow too. God knows it needs to happen .
 
How to stop crying and admit you've been emotionally manipulated by a TV show!!



Three seasons in, NBC’s This Is Us continues to be the most notable primetime drama on television. Throughout its short tenure, it’s earned six Golden Globe nominations (one win) and 18 Emmy nominations (three wins). Its current Rotten Tomatoes score sits at a healthy 87 per cent, and it was the sixth most-watched show of the year in 2017, according to Nielsen, following television juggernauts The Big Bang Theory, The Good Doctor and NCIS.

In the era of Peak TV, where Netflix and HBO reign supreme, the critical and commercial success of This Is Us marks a particularly impressive achievement.


Hoping to achieve the same results, This Is Us creator Dan Fogelman essentially compressed the meaty main themes of his series — life, death, love, family — into Life Itself, a 120-minute film (though with no less plot). Only, it wasn’t quite received the same way. Premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival in September to a blistering 11 per cent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, Life Itself has gone on to earn a mere $3.7-million box office in its first two weeks. Critics have dubbed it “the worst movie of the year,” “an unholy combination of Rashomon and Babel,” “excruciatingly contrived and ill-conceived,” “emotionally sadistic” and “grief porn.”



Moore, Ventimiglia.
NBC
In a recent IndieWire interview, Fogelman addressed the critical scolding: “I think that the people with the widest reach are getting increasingly cynical and vitriolic and I think there are a couple of genres and a couple of ideas that they (attack, which) doesn’t speak to not just a mainstream audience, but also a sophisticated audience. … There’s a disconnect between something that is happening (with) our primarily white male critics who don’t like anything that has any emotion.” He then blasted them for labelling his work “emotionally manipulative” every time they see storylines where his characters “go through anything.”


For the clever pop-culture critic, this might prompt a question: why would something that’s praised on television be denigrated when it makes its way to the cinema? But for the galaxy-brained pop-culture critic, a more pressing query comes to mind: why haven’t we been harder on This Is Us, when it does all the things for which Life Itself stands accused?

For both series and film, narratives that could hold some semblance of emotional weight — like Life Itself‘s exploration of mental health or This Is Us‘s interracial family politics — become trivial under the weight of emotional theatrics. Unfortunately for Fogelman, the critical response to his movie has revealed the depths to which This Is Us has managed to deceive its audience, by serving basic emotional melodrama under the guise of sophistication. That’s a smart play when it comes to ratings, but not so much when it comes to substance.



Watson, Brown.
Ron Batzdorff/NBC
In the initial season of This Is Us, the impending death of the family patriarch, Jack Pearson (Milo Ventimiglia), felt like a spectre that didn’t loom so much as it was held above by a jerry-rigged harness controlled by a crew member to up the emotional ante. When it finally made its crash-landing mid-way through the second season of the series, NBC chose to bill the moment as a “television event,” securing the highly sought-after post-Super Bowl time slot for the episode, and drawing nearly 27-million viewers in the process.

Unlike its patricidal predecessors Six Feet Under, Brothers & Sisters and Parenthood, This Is Us had no intention of subtly weaving death into its narrative. It reduced a potentially poignant moment into a plot device, pivoting its production toward a direction that would make most soap operas shudder. From the pilot episode, it was clear that the series shared more in common with an M. Night Shyamalan movie than anything resembling prestige television, concluding in a cliffhanger that revealed Jack and wife Rebecca (Mandy Moore) in Timeline A were parents to the adults in Timeline B.

There have been many twists since, including fooling viewers into believing Jack survives a house fire (due to a faulty crock-pot, natch) in Season 2, only to have the character succumb to an unrelated heart attack. Viewers were also treated to Jack’s adoptive son Randall (Sterling K. Brown) meeting his biological father William, who not only turned out to be suffering from stage-four cancer, but admitted to abandoning his son just before tragically dying (but not before coming out as being bisexual). We also learned that Jack had a secret brother, that Rebecca knew William wanted to reunite with Randall (but never told him) and that, after Jack’s death, she gets the hots for his best friend.

These ridiculous story arcs seem custom built for its cast to ham up, from self-righteous, meandering speeches by Randall to talk of being a good father, a good man and a good husband from Jack (not to mention the pitiful levels of martyrdom embraced by Rebecca). No episode lacks for earnestness, but to the critical viewer, the writing comes across as cheap, reeking of emotional manipulation and Emmy bait. Like over-salted french fries that dry out your mouth yet beg your brain to buy more, Fogelman injects a heavy dose of addictive melodrama into his series – and his film.



Oscar Isaac and Olivia Wilde in Life Itself.
VVS Films
Jared Feldman, the CEO of Canvs, an emotional measurement and analytics company that advises NBCUniversal, recently told Forbes, “Emotional connections are critical to a show’s success. We found that Season 2 of This is Us received 3.6 times more ‘cried’ reactions (on social media) than any other broadcast TV dramas during the same time period. By tapping into emotions such as sadness, creators are building deeper relationships with audiences that translate into increased viewership. … In TV dramas, for every 1 per cent increase in emotional reactions conveying ‘hate,’ there is a 0.7 per cent increase in viewership. Tapping into emotions such as ‘hate,’ ‘sadness’ and ‘beautiful’ is proven to drive results for networks and creators.”

In other words, television can be a paint-by-numbers game, and it’s one Fogelman loves to play. At least his ethos is clear: he wants us to relate to his characters and commiserate on the meaning of love and life, but also feel for them like we’ve never felt for anything before, our vision clouded with tears. “Look at this individual,” he says. Then, after conspiring to bury the individual in emotional quicksand and the most feared circumstances imaginable, he asks his audience if we feel pity for the character. When we, as tortured human beings ourselves, answer affirmatively, that we do indeed possess empathy, Fogelman says “ta-da,” like a magician at the completion of his brilliantly arranged trick.

Can we forgive writer Dan Fogelman for doing what he does best with Life Itself?
How did Clayne Crawford’s Martin Riggs get written off on Lethal Weapon?
Does it matter if Bert and Ernie are gay?
It’s less a sleight of hand, though, and more a slap in the face of the great melodramas before it, like the aforementioned Six Feet Under, which proved two decades ago that the death of the father can be inspiration enough for five years of rich and evenly paced storytelling. For this series, death was the beginning and the end, not a random occurrence. Nuanced montages and monologues existed, but they were done sparingly. Through its dedication to story, it earned its emotional weight.

Which is all the more reason to consider This Is Us and its ilk to be the greatest of small-screen deceptions; Fogelman is playing to the lowest common denominator, those viewers who prefer the kind of procedural crime show or soap that goes down fast and easy, and requires no thinking because they’re beaten over the head at every turn, and to whom good acting is whoever talks the loudest and great storytelling is whatever makes us cry the most.

If that’s what Fogelman wants, let’s call it for what it truly is: cheap.
 
This is a long read!! Enjoy



The Enhanced Reality of Reality TV




Reality TV is constantly derided as low brow and fake, criticized for cheating its audience and exploiting its contestants. Yet it’s also praised for its addictive drama and its entertainment, sometimes by the very people who mock it. So what is it about this enhanced reality that attracts millions of viewers across the globe?

To answer that question let us start by considering what exactly is reality TV? Reality TV follows people either in their own lives or a competition setting ‘primarily with the aim of providing entertainment rather than information.’ 1 But its focus on entertainment in terms of intense emotion, interesting characters and constant confrontation means that drama is often heightened. Contestants often call out producers for manipulating the situation and editors for not showing exactly what happened. This might be because they don’t like how they’ve come across. However, it raises a point that we, the audience, are very aware of. How much of it is real: some of it, most of it or nothing at all?

By now, after almost twenty years of watching reality TV, we know it’s manipulated to some extent but I would argue that we go too far in criticizing the enhanced reality of reality TV. Those saying it’s completely fake are right only in a few instances. Most of the time reality TV combines the real, i.e. what happens naturally, with constructed elements. This can be contestants exaggerating their behavior in order to be featured, producer intervention to amplify the way contestants behave or natural moments that have been edited. In essence, it goes back to the idea that the purpose of reality TV is to entertain rather than inform. The way it works, that it gives viewers the entertainment and drama that we look for, is through enhancing and heightening reality.

The format
The format of nearly every reality TV show is to set up a staged environment, a constructed space, which people enter. They can be celebrities or ordinary people. They show how people interact with each other but the situations created are more extreme than anything in real life.

America’s Next Top Model Cycle 24
Competition based reality shows are constructed to be more intense than any natural situation. Contestants fight for incredibly high stakes: an enormous amount of money or a dream career. For the most part, they are kept away from the real world with nothing else to do or think about apart from their current reality. This heightens their emotions and responses. What’s more, in many shows they’re in a constant state of jeopardy as someone is eliminated every week. America’s Next Top Model is a job interview unlike anything in real life. Contestants competing for a modeling contract live in the same house, are judged in front of each other and face weekly eliminations. Tensions and intense feelings are bound to escalate much faster than in any normal situation.

One form of reality TV is competition shows. Another is docusoaps which ‘chronicle the purportedly real lives of an interconnected group of people, often in a melodramatic way’. 2 Initially they appear more natural than competition based reality TV because we are following people in their own environment rather than an environment that is constructed solely for the show. But docusoaps are as highly produced as competition shows. Participants don’t have mundane office jobs and are either celebrities, rich, or have unusual or exciting jobs that put them in extreme situations. For example, Keeping up with the Kardashians follows the celebrity Kim Kardashian and her family. Participants are not shown doing everyday, mundane activities but at the most interesting and exciting moments of their already exciting lives. What’s more, they’re seen in emotionally intense and dramatic situations. While this is a documentary of sorts, it’s clear that in these programs there’s been some editing or producer interference. This is a constructed reality.

Acting up

Contestants from Season 4 of Are You the One
The fact that the contestants are in artificial and exaggerated situations and know they’re being watched means that many act up in front of the camera. Many desire fame or, at least, understand that their chances of success on the show, whether this may be winning a monetary prize or a modeling contact, will increase with how much entertainment they bring to the show. They understand the way reality TV works. It might include low-key moments but it hinges on the dramatic. Its climaxes could well be things that happen naturally as a result of excitement or tension. But the fact that reality TV relies on dramatic moments means that many participants feel the need to perform. They either exaggerate pre-existing traits, like a bubbly personality, or exaggerate the actions they believe the show wants to feature.

But how can we judge what’s real behavior and what’s not? Annette Hill, a professor of media, comments on performance in Big Brother UK. She argues that ‘viewers turn to their own experiences and speculate how they would behave.’ 3 However, we don’t just consider how we would act in the situation but what would be normal for contestants’ age and temperament, and how consistent their behavior is.

Are You the One features 11 men and women who must date each other to find who ‘matchmakers’ have deemed their perfect match and win a share of $1 million. They might lose their inhibitions more in this scenario, particularly in how often they sleep together. Nonetheless, some degree of drinking and partying is normal for twenty-two outgoing people in their early twenties living in a house together. What is less believable is when they describe their attraction to each other as love after discovering they have the smallest things in common, for instance that they’re both Latino. Knowing that the show’s premise is to find out who ‘matchmakers’ have declared their perfect match, they act up to this image. They exaggerate their emotions because they know, from previous seasons, that being a ‘loved-up’ couple will make them more likely to be featured and highlighted. Most don’t find their match at first and some switch partners, once again declaring undying love. Part of them might genuinely like the next person but even the least cynical viewer may be dubious.

In certain game shows like Big Brother U.S., contestants recognize they must put on an act not only for the audience, but also for their competition. They must outsmart and manipulate each other in order to evict someone each week and ultimately win $500,000. One mini-game decides who becomes the ‘head of household’ with the power to put up two nominees. Another mini-game determines who has the power to replace a nominee. Alliances are formed and often switch as people break away from an alliance to act on their own game plan. Before eliminations there’ll often be someone who lies about who they will be voting out. Nevertheless, a 24/7 live feed is broadcast for the three-month duration of the show. So it would be impossible for an individual to constantly put on an act. Sometimes, especially in their interactions with those they’re closest to, the true selves and motivations of contestants are revealed.

Paul, a contestant from Season 19 of Big Brother, acting up in the Diary Room
The main vehicle of revealing the true feelings of the contestants is the confessional, the diary room. It’s a space where contestants show off their strategy and give us an insight into what they’re actually thinking. We also get a sense who they are from the way they talk about themselves and others. What’s interesting about Big Brother U.S. is that we often simultaneously see the dichotomy between contestants deceiving each other and their true feelings in the diary room.

However, even in this supposedly honest confessional, many contestants are still highly aware that the producers want things to be dramatized to attract the audience. An easy way to be featured is to play up to the cameras in the diary room. Contestants become louder, exaggerating their gestures and actions as they show off their strategies. There are two levels of role-playing going on – one where they lie to each other and one where they perform to the audience as they reveal their true thoughts and feelings.

Producers
Reality TV producers, more than anything else, heighten reality; they determine the way characters and events come across. Producers act in a number of ways. Before the show begins they cast the characters they want to feature. They ensure that what we see has the greatest potential to be a dramatic version of reality by choosing those they think will bring entertainment and interest. During and after the show, story producers analyze the footage and decide what storylines will be at the center and what message they want to portray. They create a basic edit while editors implement their vision. So producers are involved in what happens before and after the show. However, their most absorbing role is intervening during the show itself.

Real Housewives of Beverly Hills Season 6
With so many programs to choose from, producers want to keep our attention and so make things happen more quickly. They amplify real events. This can be by designing an activity to heighten a particular storyline, or talking to the contestants, encouraging them to take action. This is true of competition shows but less evident in docusoaps. In shows like Keeping up with the Kardashians, the family themselves are the producers. What about other docusoaps though? In programs, such as The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, which follows the lives of six wealthy women, producers work with participants to structure their stories. However, just like competition shows, their priority is ratings. Producers can influence participants to walk into a set up, where others are waiting to confront them. They can also make emotions fester by repeatedly bringing up a problem in confessionals. In season 6, producers capitalized on the fact that many of the women suspected Yolanda was faking her Lyme disease symptoms. They made it the theme of almost all the confessionals, stirring up heated emotions.

Jonathan Bigell, a professor of television, argues that ‘the emotional connection audiences felt with the characters led to viewers experiencing [reality tv]… as a realistic program… [so producers try] to bring out their emotional reactions to events .’ 4

Bigell underlines that, ironically, to make the characters and ultimately the show seem real, we need producers to heighten reality. They act as the catalyst that brings out contestants’ joy, fear and sadness. This can be seen as manipulating participants. But it perhaps simply pushes them to be less inhibited in how they feel and enables us to empathize with them. So does producer intervention merely make things happen more quickly or does it ensure that something occurs that would never take place without their influence?

Producers talking to contestants

The Bachelor Ben Flajnik and his prospective suitors
The Bachelor franchise has been accused of going too far in trying to keep our attention. It involves one man in The Bachelor and one woman in The Bachelorette choosing between 25-30 suitors of the opposite sex. In talking to contestants producers cannot force them to do anything. They simply manipulate their emotions to spur them to more outlandish and aggressive behavior. In Season 16 of The Bachelor, Jamie Otis, a female suitor, told producers she wanted to ‘open up’ to the bachelor, Ben Flajnik. (In The Bachelor franchise, this is often a euphemism for wanting to kiss someone.) She also told producers that she needed alcohol to take the next step. They not only encouraged her and gave her ‘liquid courage’ for twenty minutes, but partly orchestrated events. They told Ben to pull her aside in private, setting up the moment for her to kiss him, 5 ensuring she couldn’t have second thoughts. She ended up straddling his lap and so producer intervention heightened her actions. But she was the one who decided to attract his attention; they simply pushed her further.

Bekah Martinez sobs after being eliminated in The Bachelor Season 22
However, producers can amplify reality to a much greater extent. When contestants are eliminated from The Bachelor or The Bachelorette, they are driven away from the shared contestant house in a limo and interviewed about the process. At times producers refuse to let eliminated contestants out of the limo until they reveal how they’re feeling. They even make those likely to be leaving believe they have a better chance of remaining on the show so that they will be more upset in their eliminations. 6 This illustrates how producers, in their quest for drama, can go too far. To some extent they promote a false version of reality by suggesting that anyone cut from The Bachelor would be utterly devastated.

Nonetheless, genuine, long-lasting relationships (and in some cases, even marriages) have developed from the many seasons of the show. In The Bachelor, around a quarter of all bachelors develop a relationship lasting at least a year. For The Bachelorette, the figure is more like a half. This suggests that the show can’t be totally fake – enough of the contestants’ true selves must emerge during filming. For the most part, what we have is an amplified reality where producers make things happen more quickly and more dramatically, rather than cause events to take place that would never otherwise happen.

Producers twisting the truth
Producers can go too far to underline a certain point. They can make up an entire scene and suggest that it really happened by getting editors to insert this manufactured piece into the timeline of actual events. The possibility that this could happen makes viewers more concerned with how genuine reality TV is. From the beginning of Keeping up with the Kardashians, the mother Kris, has been a producer, so the goal has always been to make sure her children come across in the most positive way possible. Subsequently, in any confrontation, their boyfriends are more often than not presented as being in the wrong. This could be the truth. For years, eldest sister, Kourtney dealt with her now ex-boyfriend Scott’s drinking, but it’s not always the case. After the breakdown of Kim’s marriage to Kris Humphries, the producers constructed a scene to make Kim come across more favorably. One of the producers, Russell Jay, admitted that a scene where Kim confesses that she was struggling in her marriage was shot after she had filed for divorce. He stressed that it did not take place during a trip to Dubai as the footage claimed. 7 The scene made her seem more sympathetic as she admitted to her mother that she could be herself without Humphries, that she was happier alone and ultimately she wasn’t looking forward to returning to him. Jay could be lying but Kim and her mother were seen entering a sound stage, in Hollywood, three months later in the same clothes they wore in Dubai. Re-filming can happen for continuity. However, here, the Kardashians instructed editors to insert an artifical scene into the timeline of actual events to paint themselves in the best light. This is not an isolated incident but something they do repeatedly. It goes beyond enhancing reality. Even if some people enjoy the show regardless, many feel that they constantly take things too far. The Kardashians are more of an extreme example though. In general, most participants aren’t producers and won’t have the power to do this.

The edit
Producers play an important role in heightening the action as events play out, and decide on the general direction the show will move in terms of characters and storylines. Most, nonetheless, don’t make up scenes like the Kardaishians. Editors either cut or add things to mould the show and its characters according to the producer’s augmented version of reality. Just like producer intervention amplifies the action, reality TV needs the edit’s skewed version of reality to work. It is by cherry picking what scenes and character interactions to include that viewers are plunged straight into the action and gain an immediate impression of both the central characters and key storylines. This, to some extent, cheats the audience by only letting us see reality through a partial lens. But most of us watch TV to be entertained, to get to the drama, and it is this enhanced version of reality which delivers it.

Editing how participants come across
Chad Johnson from The Bachelorette threatens a rival contestant
Producers cast characters to fit certain stereotypes: the bad boy, the girl next door. Editors work with producers to determine how contestants come across by predominately showing us moments where these characteristics are most pronounced. Editors aim to make us react more strongly to participants either in a positive or negative way. The Bachelor franchise uses stereotypes to distinguish the many contestants. Season 12 of The Bachelorette saw one contestant, Chad Johnson, depicted as a villain. He was repeatedly shown acting aggressively: threatening other competitors and even ripping a rival’s shirt. A mocking comment by a rival would often lead to an aggressive meltdown from Chad. What was rarely shown though was the full context to the threats. Chad later defended himself, arguing that at one point some of them ‘got in his face for half an hour.’ 8 This coupled with the stress of the situation and his inability to remove himself from the other contestants in the house, provoked his bursts of temper.

Editing storylines
Just like characters are edited to make the audience more interested in them, events are crafted into storylines to appeal to the audience and make them more accessible to us. As much as we might become obsessed with reality TV, we rarely have the time or patience to watch twenty-four hours of a show, and few programs will give us this much access. Big Brother U.S. is a rare example with 24/7 live feeds. But this comes at an additional cost and most people won’t pay for every episode of this. The way that we think of things, that we become invested in them, is through a narrative, a developing story. Viewers need moments to be highlighted. Events or characters that don’t fit must be cut out or barely featured and the characters highlighted shown mainly in terms of the stereotype that fits the storyline. A major aim of both producers and editors is to generate talking points and, more recently, social media buzz, by highlighting some conflict that will make the audience take different sides and thus become more invested in the show.

Paul against Jess and Cody in Big Brother 19
In Season 19 of Big Brother U.S., the major storyline for the first half of the show was Paul and the rest of the house allied against Cody and Jess. Paul was someone the other contestants supported and revered as a seasoned contestant who had made it to the final two in the previous season. Though other contestants were featured in this storyline and had minor storylines of their own, many were barely shown at all. Almost all of them were predominately shown in terms of their relationship to Paul, Cody or Jess.

Editing to underline the brand or the message behind the show

The Kardashian-Jenner family from Keeping Up With the Kardashians
Producers want to make us invest in the message behind the show, its unique brand, and instruct editors on what they should include. Keeping up with the Kardashians follows Kim Kardashian and her blended family: her mother Kris, stepfather Bruce, siblings and step-siblings. For many years the edit created the image of a happy family. Whatever problems occurred and kept recurring, such as Bruce feeling that his opinion was not considered, the family would always come together by the end. At times this seemed manufactured. Nevertheless, we could, to some extent, believe in them as a close–knit family given their moments of genuine happiness. However, though the show and real life indicate that most of the siblings remain close, this image of a happy blended family fell apart with the end of Kris and Bruce’s marriage. Kris filed for divorce in 2014. One year later and a few months after the divorce was finalized, Bruce transitioned into Caitlyn. In an interview with Vanity Fair, Caitlyn, in talking about the reasons for the divorce, stressed that ‘twenty percent was gender and eighty percent was the way I was treated.’ 9 The edit, however, failed to truly acknowledge the seriousness of their problems.

What remains successful is the way producers use editing and the media to make us invest in the Kardashian brand. They’ve persuaded us that theirs are lives we should want to follow. The crux of what we see is real but producers and editors amplify real events to make everything that happens sensationalized. One famous example is when Kim announced her engagement to Kris Humphries in, celebrity magazine, People, one month before Season 6 started, to ensure the audience were already curious. Editors then cut the season so that few disagreements between the couple were shown: the main storyline was the proposal, the plans for the wedding and ultimately the wedding itself. Their divorce one year later suggests that we were only shown part of what really happened. Yet, in sensationalizing real events through both the edit and the media, producers and editors succeeded in generating mass interest in the Kardashian name. It’s a strategy they repeatedly used with Kourtney’s pregnancy and Kim’s subsequent marriage to Kanye West.

What do viewers see when they watch reality TV? Do they see what’s actually happening, or what producers and editors let them? Reality TV offers an enhanced version of reality that combines natural moments with constructed elements. There are numerous examples of participants acting up, editors showing only a partial perspective of events, and producers manipulating the drama. In the worst case scenario, events can be entirely made up. At times both producers and editors go too far and this can make us feel cheated. But, however much people complain, in watching reality TV viewers are generally looking to be transfixed and entertained. This can be through getting an immediate impression of the characters or through becoming captivated by the story-lines. The premise of reality TV is how people act in either a manufactured competitive setting or the dramatic scenarios of docusoups. Viewers want the shorthand of reality TV. They want to see the most interesting events and the most intense emotions, and it is the producers and editors who bring this about. In fact, for some, one of the most interesting parts of watching reality TV is debating how much what they are observing is real.
 
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