Jonathan Rosenbaum
“We are more alike, my friend, than we are unalike.” A noble sentiment, especially to a liberal universalist like me, simply and honestly expressed. So I don’t mind when I hear it spoken by the same black woman two or three times within the same public service announcement on MSNOW; I even enjoy it.
But when that same commercial or its shorter variant gets repeated endlessly on that liberal news network so that it’s played and heard dozens or hundreds of times on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis, I start to wonder if it’s being addressed to me as a friend, as an enemy, as a customer, or as arobot. Is MSNOW being friendly or indifferent towards me when it turns a worthy sentiment into an unfeeling barrage and a heedless insult? A
mechanical form of overkill, a nice thought converted into a thoughtless mantra, an irritating drone as devoid of meaning as a buzzing fly, designed to be endured rather than appreciated?
If, indeed, the only motive behind this onslaught is
a network’s desire to fill up empty space, then
assuming that some form of human communication
is taking place seems to be utterly beside the point.
This begins to sow comparable doubts on the news
being delivered in between the identical public
service announcements. Is this news only an
alternative method of filling up empty spaces, with
its own systems of repetitions?
Jonathan Rosenbaum
“We are more alike, my friend, than we are unalike.” A noble sentiment, especially to a liberal universalist like me, simply and honestly expressed. So I don’t mind when I hear it spoken by the same black woman two or three times within the same public service announcement on MSNOW; I even enjoy it.
But when that same commercial or its shorter
variant gets repeated endlessly on that liberal news
network so that it’s played and heard dozens or
hundreds of times on a daily, weekly, and monthly
basis, I start to wonder if it’s being addressed to me
as a friend, as an enemy, as a customer, or as a
robot. Is MSNOW being friendly or indifferent
towards me when it turns a worthy sentiment into
an unfeeling barrage and a heedless insult? A
mechanical form of overkill, a nice thought
converted into a thoughtless mantra, an irritating
drone as devoid of meaning as a buzzing fly,
designed to be endured rather than appreciated?
If, indeed, the only motive behind this onslaught is
a network’s desire to fill up empty space, then
assuming that some form of human communication
is taking place seems to be utterly beside the point.
This begins to sow comparable doubts on the news
being delivered in between the identical public
service announcements. Is this news only an
alternative method of filling up empty spaces, with
its own systems of repetitions?