Prioritizing reality TV and reality
By Natali Rodriguez
One could easily argue that young adults know more about Tila Tequila's love life or Britney Spears' self-destruction than our current economic situation or the flaws in America's health care system. We've been called an apathetic generation, and there's nothing proving that assumption wrong.
Since its emergence in the early 1990s, our obsession with celebrities and reality TV has played a major role in this generational apathy. Today, it has become an addiction that needs a larger fix with each year that goes by. How is it that Web sites like TMZ.com can dedicate all of their time to telling us that Eva Longoria was spotted eating at a restaurant in Hollywood? Because we buy it.
Too often the topic between friends at dinner revolves around the scandalous details of celebrity romance, rather than the issues that threaten our present and future. It seems like people are more concerned with reality TV than the news.
What is it about these fascinating strangers that demands our attention? Perhaps our regular, middle-class lives are so boring that America longs for the thrills and excitement of the rich and famous. Celebrity culture provides an escape. But everyone shares many of the same hardships. The issues confronted in reality shows aren't exclusive to the people we see on the TV screen.
From the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to Guantanamo Bay, there's plenty for us to focus on that we choose not to. Does it really take a large-scale disaster for us to take notice of what's going on around us?
Even serious news stations occasionally feature ten-minute segments focused on celebrity news. This celebrity-obsessed culture has turned us into an ignorant people as a whole. Maybe we can live better thinking that our lives are not affected by what happens out in the real world, but eventually, real issues will affect us.
While the real world may be scarier than MTV's "Real World," which do we really want to prioritize? After all, years down the road it will be more important to remember when Lindsay Lohan became a lesbian than when our soldiers came home, right?
It's time to get off our couches and stop watching ridiculous reality TV shows. Now more than ever, it seems like the time to make this lifestyle change. When we obsess over the lives of others, we teach those around us to do the same. If we sustain this celebrity culture and the generation below us follows our lead, it will only get worse. There are superior values we can choose to exemplify.
This generation needs to learn that it's senseless to fill our minds with information about the lives of people we don't even know. This generation needs to learn how to start educating itself.
It will only get worse unless something is done. We've been called apathetic, but we're also the generation most capable of changing history. After all, we have the long-abused resources of the information age at our disposal.
It's time we start exchanging our apathetic reputation for a better one. We don't want to be remembered as the lazy generation who had it all and did nothing.
We should want to be remembered as the generation that used our advantages to go beyond the accomplishments of those who came before us.
Natali Rodriguez is a freshman communication major.