There was an article in The Washington Post recently titled-Fun is Dead- by Karen Heller. Here are some of the passages from the piece. “Sometime in recent history, possibly around 2004, Americans forgot to have fun, true fun, as though they’d misplaced it like a sock. Fun is often emphatic, exhausting, scheduled, pigeonholed, hyped, forced and performative. The holiday season is an extended exercise in excess and loud, often sleazy sweaters.” I was glad to see that I am not alone in my thinking. I’m going to use my former occupation as a stepping off point, radio broadcasting. The radio world in its heyday was aces, people on the radio having f u n, marketing departments cranking out station events that wowed, doing things first cabin, a high school with money if you will. What the f.ck happened?? Over the past 15 years or so the life has been sucked out of the medium. Rarely do you hear of any radio station promotions which would excite the listener such as a remote broadcast generating a party atmosphere where everyone is invited to participate in. Stations around the country were stocked with DJs with personalities who would riff on things that would generate phone calls or offer some feel of entertainment. And even if a number of them were “shock” jocks at least it was something different than the same ol’ same ol’ nowadays where hosts drone on about Covid or migrants or any number of other tire flattening topics. If you’re doing those topics how about going a little rogue…”hey, how about the migrants go out and pick up trash around their host city, it gets them out of their tents and they can pay back some of those tax dollars being used to house them.” Now the big deal on radio is when a station in town is going to switch to all Christmas music for the season. The fact that fun has been declining for years is not just in one particular business, it’s everywhere. Fewer and fewer office parties out there, fewer people even going to the office. Back to Karen’s article-“The world is so much less about human connection. We do more things virtually. People are more isolated. And there’s all this toxic positivity to convince people of how happy you are.” Jeezus, comedians are vilified for “going too far.” Wow, are we all that sensitive? Comedians used to be the prism to collect all this daily nonsense we witness and push it out with some yuks. All newscasts are designed to warn you about some boogeyman real or imagined out there and they will “protect” you from said evil so stay tuned. How emergency plane landings and house fires factor into my everyday life I don’t know. When does the fun start?? It’s like the Joker said in Batman, “why so serious?” And then he blew up a hospital.
Klaatu, Barada, Nikto
Garry