I Choose To See This As A Good Thing

fabunobo posted with a pic of his Halloween costume the other day:


If you Love It!,
share props and adulation at his LJ.

Here's the thing: I didn't get it. At all.

Really.

And I see that as a good thing.

I'm bragging here. I have so distanced myself from commercial "news" media that not one pip of this silly story made it on my radar. Commercial "news" exists only to keep people in their seats staring at the blinky box through the commercials. ("That beverage in your hand can kill you! Stay tuned to find out how.") The thought of a 6-year-old maybe dangling from a gas bag hurtling across the sky is OJ-in-a-Bronco news. Yes, people find themselves riveted to the tube. But do they learn anything, anything at all?

I kept tripping on mention of Balloon Boy in the internets afterwards, but didn't pay much attention, apparently. Thought it was an ad campaign (which it kinda was). Not until I saw fabunudo's get-up did I finally ask The Wife and a friend what was up. Last night. I got the eye-roll on that one.

But here's the thing: All that time I wasn't following the exploits of a media-manipulative UFO crackpot family in Colorado, I was learning things that were far more likely true. Strangely -- and I say this with a tinge of pride in our American PBS system -- NPR didn't even mention this well enough for me to find it on Morning Edition. The podcasts to which I subscribe gave me my first hint before I broke down and asked The Wife: Clark Boyd at The World's Technology Podcast played the 5th Dimension's "Beautiful Balloon" as a hint of what he wouldn't be covering. And just today, the crew of The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe gave me a 5-minute recap of all the details I need to know about the woo-woo father's stunt.

What's weirder still, some of my friends constantly come to me for quirky tidbits of info. Usually I can help them. They have no idea why I prove this repository of general knowledge . . . yet they think I care one whit when they try to update me about the latest from Dancing with the Stars or America's Got Talent. I know obscure but somewhat trivial detail because I don't follow that crap. For me, it's that simple.

I remember being glued to the White Bronco as it happened. Did my paying attention get OJ apprehended any faster? Nope. Not by one second. Lesson learned.

Raw news footage is just that, raw. Like raw food, it isn't ready for consumption. Basically, news should be finished before it is plated and served.

So, that's my story. I ask you: Is your life better because mention of this (*ahem*) inflated hype took up you time? How much time would you say was lost to this and similar stories, if any? Importantly, what do you think you weren't learning about in the time it took to relate this developing breaking story as it unfolded?

And think further: How many stories of this caliber but lacking the quirkiness of the Balloon Kid did you follow to no avail? How many spoonfuls of crap got shoved down your throat before you realized you were being duped by the "news?"