No Escape

I didn't watch that Oprah interview with Harry and Meghan.  In fact, I went out of my way to avoid it, as I do most media 'events' of this sort.  So why do I feel as if I did see it?  Likewise, I don't subscribe to Disney +, so didn't see WandaVision.  Yet, once again, I feel s if I saw every episode and can give you a blow-by-blow description of every plot twist.  But that's the thing about modern mass media: it is all pervasive.  No matter how hard you try, you just can't avoid these 'events'.  Even if you don't see them directly, they are reported on everywhere, in detail, so that it becomes impossible not to know about them.  I find it especially annoying when it comes to celebrity culture, into which bracket that Oprah interview falls, as it is something I am supremely uninterested in.  I'm always left asking exactly why I'm meant to be interested in the lives of these people?  I mean, are any of them engaged in activities which are going to change peoples' lives for the better/worse?  Have any of them, in the past, done anything remotely worthwhile?  Are any of them likely to do anything significant in the foreseeable future?  I think that we all know the answers to those questions.  In the main, they are simply famous for being famous.  Yet their lives are flaunted in our faces, wherever we look, as if they somehow matter  more than any 'ordinary' person's.  

As a result of this relentless media bombardment, I find myself recognising various 'celebrities' whose 'work' I have never seen, knowing intimate details of their lives.  Indeed, these days it comes as a relief when I see a celebrity story and I can still say to myself: 'I don't know who any of these people are.'  I'm sure that this celebrity media overload has been exacerbated by the pandemic.  With everything locked down people have more time on their hands and are desperately looking for ways to fill their time - with less newsworthy stuff happening, (outside of the pandemic), celebrities re an obvious way to fill the column inches.  The trouble is that they are as 'locked down' as everyone else and not actually 'doing' anything, hence the tsunami of crap concerning the details of their, actually rather dull, lives. Likewise, just watching a new TV series isn't enough - its every aspect has to be pored over and dissected in order to fill out media articles.  When there is a news story, it tends to be magnified and given significance by outlets and the public in a way that it probably wouldn't be in normal times.  Hence, the disappearance and murder of a woman in London which, in other times would probably have been viewed as another appalling tragedy, the like of which seems all too common, suddenly becomes a rallying point for various campaigns and results in mass disturbances and confrontations with the police.  Like I said, with modern media making everything all pervasive, there's just no escaping anything any more.