Daily Archive

TV, you are evil. You are nefarious. And I remember why I have kept my distance from you for so many years, and why I’ve kept you out of my Guatemalan home. You lie to me, steal from me, and cloud my mind. You are so deceptive that, just yesterday, I almost went out and and purchased a box of Tampax Tampons just because you made them look so cool! But after I realized that I don’t actually use tampons, I finally decided to save the money.

But this is one of your favorite things to do, isn’t it? You are so good at making people buy things we don’t need. Like those Jordans I bought when I was in middle school and high school. I never NEEDED those. But oh, the commercials you made seduced me. The ones with Spike Lee and Jordan. The ones with him flying through the air. What kid wouldn’t want to fly? And this lured me into spending more money than my family could ever afford. Come to think of it, my mom must hate you as much as I do. Her kids crying and screaming because we just HAD to have those shoes. “I wanna be like Mike, mommy!!!” we would yell.

I wasn’t like Mike though. No, instead I was a self-conscious little brat who didn’t figure out how to ignore materialistic temptation until I was in my 20’s. Just imagine, I could’ve been stronger, and I could’ve had more confidence in myself if you weren’t telling me how much I sucked with every reality television show, with every million-dollar commercial, with every subliminal message.

And this is only one reason why you are rubbish, TV. I don’t even want to get started on the amount of time we waste listening to your nonsense. Instead of learning to play the guitar, or learning to draw, or learning a new language, you want to know what I learned growing up! I learned all of the characters names on Full House, Saved by the Bell, and 90210. I learned that Sam Beckett can travel through time and become a woman, or even an African-American. Information that’s never, ever going to help me in the future. All the while I could have learned about poverty, or even where different countries are located in this never-ending, fascinating world of ours. But you keep this simple and basic, so people don’t question and aren’t curious. It’s no wonder why so few people know when the Civil War started, or which countries were involved in World War II, or why children are such poor readers today.

I could go on. Matter of fact, I will. You also cripple the creativity of the youth. You keep family members from having full, enriching conversations. And you mislead us into thinking the world is a certain way. We learn to fear people of different cultures because of the lies you tell about them. We learn to love war because you romanticize it. And instead of showing us people completing positive, courageous acts…you show us a tiger escaping from a zoo and killing a man; you show us a woman who stabbed her husband because he looked at a gift too early; you show us celebrities who have been in and out of prison or drug rehab.

But it doesn’t have to be this way! Instead, you could show people who are volunteering their time in different countries, and children who are doing extraordinary things on a daily basis. But that’s not news, right? Who wants to hear about a group of middle school students raising money for Darfur, Sudan? Who wants to hear about Peace Corps volunteers all over the globe?

TV, you have so much potential to change the world in a positive way. If only you’d see how beautiful you could be. But wait…would there be any money in that?