I remember you, History Channel, and I used to like you. You were this place which broadcast documentaries and informative programs based on things which happened in the past, things which happened previous to the present moment. Interestingly, all of human experience is located there. In the past. Previous to the present moment. In history.
Back there in the past, I used to flick to your channel when I felt like knowing about the Roman Empire or World War I trench warfare or the age of chivalry in the time of Agincourt or numerous other events which occurred in the past. I flicked over to you recently.
UFOs, Loch Ness monster research, “Ice Road Truckers,” guys who cut down forests: History Channel, are you serious? What corporate executive conference based on Nielsen reports recommended this departure? In a way, I suppose, it says more about the demographics of advertising than it does about anything else. Apparently, in order to reach the most viewers, you must dumb down your content to the lowest common denominator in order to score a ratings bonanza.
Fine. If that’s your business model, I will never watch you again.
However, my fear is for the wider implication of the History Channel’s fall from “history,” that of the market-driven need. Unfortunately, 90 percent of humans couldn’t care less about what happened before they “mysteriously arrived” here and how we got to where we are now. (That thing called history you named your channel after might help explain it). Your market instead demands Nostradamus, the Loch Ness monster and UFOs.
Sitting back and watching actual history play itself out, I see clearly how we humans are doomed.
We’ve decided none of the History Channel’s audience/growing demographic is actually interested in history. History is not entertaining enough. We humans are damned because the majority of us do not care about what came before. We do not care to learn from our mistakes because the reality of our past, our history, does not sell products.
But UFOs, Ice Road Truckers and Nostradamus do. Dumbed-down content attracts dumb people. And sadly, for humanity’s sake, dumb people are the majority. You know who the real Nostradamus is? Without a doubt, it is Mike Judge. Ever seen “Idiocracy”? I suggest you watch it. It is a comedic film in which the crisis of the ever-decreasing population of intelligence leaves the earth hundreds of years later plagued by unsustainable garbage deposits, famine and drought due to plants being fed only with electrolytes (because electrolytes are good for everything, of course) and the ultra popular “Ow, My Balls” TV show in which that exact phrase is said over and over as chaps are in various ways hit in the obvious area.
It’s the advertisers who have destroyed the newspaper industry. Papers started to cater to the lowest common denominator, always trying to please everyone and never stir the pot – it was bad for advertising revenue. Advertisers preferred to advertise/deal with just a handful of the largest papers, and the smaller dailies slowly died off or were bought out.
The one thing bringing people back to the papers was their utilitarian content, the sports scores, classifieds, weather, comics, etc. Where else could the people go? They were captive customers. Then, the Internet came out, and since the papers had long ago stopped catering to the customer in favor of advertisers, they were unable to react quickly enough and the world turned to the Internet for these functions. Now, the only people I know who read the paper are those without Internet access.
Could the same thing be happening to TV? Is it dying, and we don’t even know it?
Remember when you could watch the Food Network to see talented chefs creating fine cuisine? Now you can enjoy Rachel Ray incorporate turkey burger into the cuisine of literally every country on the planet, hear Marc Summers narrate 10-minute commercials for Cheez-Its and call it “Unwrapped” or watch the world’s biggest douche shove half of a sloppy joe sandwich into his mouth and call it money. And don’t get me started on “chef” Sandra Lee (Although she’s fine, that’s all I can think about! Yugh!)
I seem to remember being a kid back in the day when Discovery first came on, when it was a tiny little cable channel with no money. It showed tons of old documentaries which cost next to nothing to show. Most of them were about WWII. Then Discovery grew, getting more and more science, so they slid all that “cheapo” documentary stuff to the new Learning Channel. We could still get our war TV and watch Panzers roll across the hedgerows.
Then, the History Channel came along. Again, shift the WWII footage and historical documentaries there to soak up the viewership.
But somewhere along the line TLC went from learning stuff to being the Lifetime channel, with most of its shows about babies, having babies, making babies, gestating babies, looking at families with cute babies or looking at families with sick babies. Sometimes it would show babies growing up. Home renovation shows: “Trading Spaces.” And here’s the trump card: an entire show dedicated to women who, to their surprise, went into labor after nine months of being ignorant to the fact they were pregnant.
There’s a reasonable explanation for that last show on TLC though, dudes. It’s 2012, of course! Don’t you see!? Don’t you watch the History Channel? It is population control. It’s the Nostradamus-predicted planet in which a blue-beam project is used in conjunction with the UFOs to garner in a new order we will not see coming because we have been distracted by the Loch Ness monster and other pseudoscience backed quack theories…
You want to know some real history? Florida has not won in Starkville since 1985. So screw it. You were good to me, TV, but now I’m going to go read a book.
Julio Cespedes is a senior majoring in biological engineering. He can be contacted at [email protected].