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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 1, 1997)
CONTACTING US NEWSROOM: ADDRESS: (541)346-5511 Oregon Daily Emerald E-MAIL PO BOX 3159 ode@oregon. uoregon edu Eugene, Oregon 97403 ONLINE EDITION: darkwing uoregon edu/~ode 1 Perspectives EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Sarah Kickler EDITORIAL EDITOR Mike Schmierbach NIGHT EDITORS Doug Irving Sarah Kickler Trapped in consumer paradise The media and corporate America combine to create a u>orld where reality has no role u W: hat the hell is go ing on?” No one can spend any con siderable amount of time in a college town without asking his or herself that question. But as I ease into my second year of college, I find it occu pying an inordinate amount of my time. Apparently, there is a youth cul ture around here somewhere. Or at least fashion magazines and TV com Kameron Cole mercials keep in sisting there is. And if we know what’s good for us, we should go out right now and jump right into it. Fortunately, it doesn’t take much digging to see that what is passing for culture these days is basically a lot ol hype and nonsense. Harder to fath om, however, is why so many people seem to be buying it. One of the more intriguing theories claims that the younger population is actually getting dumber. Not in terms of brain cells or I.Q. points, but rather in the sense that our collective knowledge seems to be leaning away from the traditional and more toward the trivial. General sentiment places responsi bility for this “dumbing down” at the doors of several sources, the most conspicuous of which is the mass media. Recent years have witnessed the increased emphasis on entertainment over news. As society’s fascination with celebrity has grown, interest in reality has waned. A look at events of the past couple years reveals that anything even remotely connected to the personality of the week will sell papers, attract ratings and boost ad revenues — fast. The long term consequences of such practices are disturbing. It’s scary to think that legitimate news is being buried under the latest O.J. dra ma or an in-depth interview with Princess Diana’s hairdresser, but it’s . .....JKs&m&biiw>»«is5S«^ CHRIS HUTCHINSON/Emerald even more frightening to conceive ot a society that may one day come to regard Entertainment Tonight as “the news" and The National Enquireras “the paper." Of course, the principle of supply and demand can’t be overlooked here. People want to be entertained. Escapism is a normal, indeed a nec essary, part of life. The problem starts when people establish residency in the world they escape to. Obviously, there must be some middle ground between the deadly serious and the patently inane. Un fortunately, the media that spawn monsters like Hard Copy and A Cur rent Affair don’t seem to have found it yet. But as with most social problems, there’s more than enough blame to go around. If the media are going to be the whipping boy here, then the cor porate machine is going to have to take its share of licks. Corporations operate with one key objective: finding the most effective way to sell you the most stuff you don’t need. And like a pit bull on a squirrel, once they latch on to a desir able demographic, they have no in tention of letting go. Pretty much everyone within the 15 to 30 age group — from the teenage militias that while away the days at Eugene Station to the most frazzled grad stu dent — can be certain that they’ll re ceive a healthy dose of sound bites and catch phrases each day. One trend segues into another on an almost weekly basis, adding to the mountain of irrelevant crap that forms the foundation for much of modem life. Culture manufacturers whittle away at independent thought by serving up prefabricated identities and ideas. In fact, the most notable thing about mass culture is the ease with which it can be bought and sold. The saddest part about all this is the legacy we stand to leave. The idea that years from now my generation will be remembered not in terms of turning points and contributions but rather ad campaigns and video clips is, at the least, disheartening. One of the biggest perks of college life is the ability to pick and choose how much of real life you actually want to experience. It’s extremely tempting to simply slip on a pair of Nikes, pull back the tab on a can of Bud Light and spin “Barbie Girl” one more time; it’s also extremely dull. The real world can be exceedingly unpleasant at times, but it is also infi nitely more interesting than anything MTV orTime-Wamer has to offer. Anyone who doesn’t at least try to ex plore the opportunities that lie out side of his or her own microcosm is wasting the college experience. Kameron Cole is a columnist for the Emerald. Her columns appear on alter nate Wednesdays. Her views do not nec essarily reflect those of the Emerald. Drawing Board IM (ONCkOMfO A80UT TUI POJCfPT'CXM TVMW l CHDNT fttACT -o vft Fund RAiJiMfe Situation Fa$t£nOi>€>M.. I OrCOUfWt.MOJT PEOPlf WOULD LAY A WREATH. Quoted "This is great news tor sprouters. I’ve al ready got my seed source located and will probably have sprouts in seven days.” Nancy Snider, president of ttw International Sprout Growers Associated, re sponding to news that broccoli sprouts might heip prevent can cer, quoted in the Tuesday Register Guard. “A critique is not a matter of saying that things are not right as they are. ftisa matter of pointing out on what kinds of assumptions, what kinds of fa miliar, unchal lenged, unconsid ered modes of thought the prac tices that we ac cept rest... (C]riti cism Is absolutely indispensable for any transforma tion. A transfor mation that re mains within the same mode of thought, a trans formation that is only a way of ad justing the same thought more closely to the real ity of things can merely be a su perficial transfor mation." Philosopher Michel Foucault, in a 1981 inter view, quoted in Michel Foucault Politics, Philoso phy, Culture, edit ed by Lawrence Kritzmanand translated by Alan Sheridan. “It appears that virginity for both sexes is back in style.” Thatpropbetof the cutting edge, Aim Landers, quoted in Tues day's Oregonian. CORRECTION The Welcome Back concert Monday night cost $2,000. The ASUO paid $500 from its pro grams budget; sponsors funded the rest. The Emerald regrets the error.
