Selling Car Wrecks for Fun and Profit

Normalizing aberrant behavior for fun and profit.

Humans have a morbid fascination with car wrecks, train wrecks, plane wrecks. We pull over to the side of the road to see what is happening. Watching for blood and gore. Grimacing and feeling somehow better because it's them and not us.

Corporate media reports on these wrecks. Presents the occurrences as a normal part of everyday life. Normalizing the abnormal, normalizing the obscene. To the point that most Americans believe the abnormal has become the norm, that the absurd is common. So much so that events of neighbor helping neighbor are seen as aberrant rather than common occurrence. Especially if you know someone whose sister knows someone whose hairdresser knows someone whose brother has met someone who actually did that.

Then there are the urban myths. Shared by one and all whose morbid fascination with things obscene and weird for entertainment and warning. The modern day boogey man for adults. Did you hear the one about the guy who went on a blind date only to awake in the morning in a bathtub full of ice with one kidney missing?

And there is enough aberrant behavior in the world to make it seem as though these types of things happening could possibly be true. Unless of course, the thing that's happened is just "too good to be true."

Have you heard that? So and so is "too good to be true." Have you ever heard anyone ever say someone was "too bad to be true?" "That's just too awful to have actually happened." No matter how outrageous or horrific, the human capacity to believe the worst of anyone or anything far outweighs any normal skepticism that might occur would the event be something altruistic or kind. Did you hear about the kid that found $1M dollars and found and returned it to the owners? Isn't he just too good to be true? Did you hear about the guy that lured homosexual teenagers to his apartment, killed them, then chopped them up into pieces and ate them? Isn't that just the most horrific thing you've ever heard? How awful. Tell me more.

Corporate media uses this part of the human psyche's fascination with the morbid and obscene to market the nightly news. Or the 24 hour news. And even the daily talk shows. Not only reporting on the car wrecks by the side of the rode, but diverting traffic to them for all to see. And when that's not enough, erecting blazing neon signs over the wreck to attract traffic from other parts of the freeway to come and see the car wreck. And during sweeps week, making sure the neon signs are placed in such a way to ensure additional wrecks to add to the gore and blood and gruesome sights. All for fun and profit.

The bottom line; marketing the news as entertainment. Blood, gore, and the destruction of human lives for the benefit of all mankind that we might feel relieved that "there but for the grace of God, go I."

I wonder how long until the deviant behavior marketed by corporate media has become so common place and so ho hum that they'll be forced to start marketing stories about good works by neighbors for neighbors. How long until it's considered more unusual to help thy neighbor and love thy neighbor so that corporate media will begin to market stories about the good works of people for people for fun and profit.