Are we all becoming addicted to scandal? I am beginning to wonder because it seems to me that every time after a big, juicy scandal breaks like Ah-nold & The Love Child or Weinergate, we feel a bit let down when there are no new pictures to giggle over, confessions to hear or bimbos to erupt. We all suffer from a kind of a post-dirt-dishing tristesse.
Oh, there is always news but not the kind of news that gets a tabloid’s editor toe-tapping or makes us rush to the computer to look for the very latest, no matter how shocking it is. (And, please, please, let it be really shocking.)
Maybe it has always been that way. We have always had a taste for gossip, but it used to be on a local level. We gossiped about people we knew. Now gossip goes not only nationwide but worldwide. .Everyone everywhere can talk about Pippa Middleton’s butt or Weiner’s crotch. And yes, we know should be debating what to do about the debt crisis or how to get Khadafy out but that’s really hard (no pun intended.) So it is a lot easier for media, which really doesn’t know much about anything but media, to fill the 24/7 news cycle with the most titillating of softcore news.
Certainly these stories have made us more and more cynical. And one hates to think what it must be doing to the kids. But the media seems to have cottoned on to our increasing scandal addiction and become more and more eager to tell us the stories that confirm our cynicism.
Do we all need scandal rehab? Probably. Will we admit we have a problem and promise we won’t check out the latest dish on a hourly basis. Probably not. But does it make me worry about our media and ourselves. Yes, yes, yes.
