In my opinion, this take isn't quite right. It misses a lot.
The Gong Show didn't begin until late 1976, and it was a surrealistic goof on Ted Mack's Amateur Hour. Lightweight, but chock full of weird novelty content.
The real advent of Mindless Spectacle, in the 1980s: the Lifestyles Of The Rich And Famous, with Robin Leach.
More importantly, TV was just not that important to the Youth Culture in the 1970s. Part of what made Saturday Night Live (which didn't begin until 1975) such a legendary TV show in that era is that it was only one that was a contemporary youth directed show, coming from a perspective and cracking jokes that flew under the radar of the Parentals.
What was important was Music. Whether disco or live music, there was a lot of focus on going out to enjoy music. Brilliant music was being made in every genre. The immediacy of radio, and playing LPs and tapes--music in the air, in the streets, coming out of open windows--was more important than housebound, couch-bound TV. Given more emphasis. Often the best radio was on late at night--the creep of advertising content receded, and maybe a new LP release would be presented in its entirety. Music is so ineffably interesting. Enthralling and inspiring. I've felt enriched from watching an exceptional episode of a TV show, but a solid uninterrupted hour--or more--of music is a realm all its own.
Recall that the technology of 1970s home TV was primitive. There was no home theater. Also a reason why TV was of little importance in the 1970s. The last decade before television technology upgraded, and began to eat everyone's minds. I noticed this, because I made the decision to get rid of mine in 1981. And after a couple of years of observation, I got to conclude that some of the things that marijuana was being blamed for by Drug Warriors--like making people aliterate, dull-witted, and lazy--was arguably more the result of excessive television viewing, and also a problem that afflicted a much larger fraction of Americans, across the board. Seriously, facts need to be faced here. It isn't possible to read a book or magazine and watch TV at the same time, is it? https://cdn.theatlantic.com/thumbor/bGRR2cNB3V7Hxfd6RC5TVW5zyIc=/filters:format(png)/media/img/posts/2018/05/chart_3/original.png
But don't get me wrong. The 1980s was an era that began some real important trends, like gym-fitness-outdoor activity culture. And a lot of 1980s music was really, really good. It just wasn't absorbed as deeply.
I never thought that rock was meant as a vehicle for Revolutionary Politics. I really had no use for having that volume and intensity harnessed in any political direction. As cultural revolution, the music being made and heard was definitely revolutionary. But then in the 1980s TV achieved Media Supremacy, and then something like Hegemony. And TV absorbed rock; it trained the users to its dictates. The way machine technologies so often tend to do.
It's hilarious for me to read Conspiracy Theories about the 1960s and 70s centering on Drugs (read: marijuana and LSD) as a Mind Control Project, with the Counterculture created by "the Deep State", or what have you. The real Mind Control has always been right out in the open. The Control over the Counterculture was asserted through Drug Use Criminalization and the Globalized War on Drugs. The Mind Control of the American population in the pre-Internet era was largely asserted through the hypnotic appeal of the TV set. Often augmented with that new technology, the video recorder.player. Audio coupled to video, once again. And the commercials got more sophisticated--more spectacular, more cleverly pitched to flatter the young.
The peak era of Gatekeeper News Media? The 1990s. Beginning with the 1991 CNN coverage of the Persian Gulf War. That began the "24 hour news channel" craze. How was news reportage prioritized? about 50% of the news media content between 1994 and 2000 be summed up with two stories: OJ Simpson, Bill Clinton's impeachment. And I saw how many people went for it. The Lewinsky impeachment being especially baffling to me--because the Republicans did not have the votes! I can count! It was never gonna happen! So why did anyone--in Congress, the media, or the viewing audience--think it was of all-consuming importance to spend every damn weeknight for two years riveted to watching the Bill and Monica show, when the outcome was a foregone conclusion?
your history may be a bit off, but I couldn't have put the ending any better. The question of when the problem began is less important than reflecting on where we are now. I think that much of the problem is related to the hours spent viewing more remote orders of existence on The Screen. Whether the television screen, the computer screen, or the smartphone screen.
Did the Unknown Comic ever make the guest list for Studio 54 though?
Sadly there are literally stand-ups my age and younger that do not know the Unknown Comic
The original anon
In my opinion, this take isn't quite right. It misses a lot.
The Gong Show didn't begin until late 1976, and it was a surrealistic goof on Ted Mack's Amateur Hour. Lightweight, but chock full of weird novelty content.
The real advent of Mindless Spectacle, in the 1980s: the Lifestyles Of The Rich And Famous, with Robin Leach.
More importantly, TV was just not that important to the Youth Culture in the 1970s. Part of what made Saturday Night Live (which didn't begin until 1975) such a legendary TV show in that era is that it was only one that was a contemporary youth directed show, coming from a perspective and cracking jokes that flew under the radar of the Parentals.
What was important was Music. Whether disco or live music, there was a lot of focus on going out to enjoy music. Brilliant music was being made in every genre. The immediacy of radio, and playing LPs and tapes--music in the air, in the streets, coming out of open windows--was more important than housebound, couch-bound TV. Given more emphasis. Often the best radio was on late at night--the creep of advertising content receded, and maybe a new LP release would be presented in its entirety. Music is so ineffably interesting. Enthralling and inspiring. I've felt enriched from watching an exceptional episode of a TV show, but a solid uninterrupted hour--or more--of music is a realm all its own.
Recall that the technology of 1970s home TV was primitive. There was no home theater. Also a reason why TV was of little importance in the 1970s. The last decade before television technology upgraded, and began to eat everyone's minds. I noticed this, because I made the decision to get rid of mine in 1981. And after a couple of years of observation, I got to conclude that some of the things that marijuana was being blamed for by Drug Warriors--like making people aliterate, dull-witted, and lazy--was arguably more the result of excessive television viewing, and also a problem that afflicted a much larger fraction of Americans, across the board. Seriously, facts need to be faced here. It isn't possible to read a book or magazine and watch TV at the same time, is it? https://cdn.theatlantic.com/thumbor/bGRR2cNB3V7Hxfd6RC5TVW5zyIc=/filters:format(png)/media/img/posts/2018/05/chart_3/original.png
But don't get me wrong. The 1980s was an era that began some real important trends, like gym-fitness-outdoor activity culture. And a lot of 1980s music was really, really good. It just wasn't absorbed as deeply.
I never thought that rock was meant as a vehicle for Revolutionary Politics. I really had no use for having that volume and intensity harnessed in any political direction. As cultural revolution, the music being made and heard was definitely revolutionary. But then in the 1980s TV achieved Media Supremacy, and then something like Hegemony. And TV absorbed rock; it trained the users to its dictates. The way machine technologies so often tend to do.
It's hilarious for me to read Conspiracy Theories about the 1960s and 70s centering on Drugs (read: marijuana and LSD) as a Mind Control Project, with the Counterculture created by "the Deep State", or what have you. The real Mind Control has always been right out in the open. The Control over the Counterculture was asserted through Drug Use Criminalization and the Globalized War on Drugs. The Mind Control of the American population in the pre-Internet era was largely asserted through the hypnotic appeal of the TV set. Often augmented with that new technology, the video recorder.player. Audio coupled to video, once again. And the commercials got more sophisticated--more spectacular, more cleverly pitched to flatter the young.
The peak era of Gatekeeper News Media? The 1990s. Beginning with the 1991 CNN coverage of the Persian Gulf War. That began the "24 hour news channel" craze. How was news reportage prioritized? about 50% of the news media content between 1994 and 2000 be summed up with two stories: OJ Simpson, Bill Clinton's impeachment. And I saw how many people went for it. The Lewinsky impeachment being especially baffling to me--because the Republicans did not have the votes! I can count! It was never gonna happen! So why did anyone--in Congress, the media, or the viewing audience--think it was of all-consuming importance to spend every damn weeknight for two years riveted to watching the Bill and Monica show, when the outcome was a foregone conclusion?
That's what I mean by Mind Control.
your history may be a bit off, but I couldn't have put the ending any better. The question of when the problem began is less important than reflecting on where we are now. I think that much of the problem is related to the hours spent viewing more remote orders of existence on The Screen. Whether the television screen, the computer screen, or the smartphone screen.