Today's Keyboard Smash
Sep. 1st, 2020 04:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
scrubjayspeaksI've been methodically cutting out most of the current events coverage I would normally listen to or watch for the last few weeks. I have a daily podcast (What A Day) that keeps me abreast of the main headlines. I watch clips from some of the late-night comedy shows as well, though I pick and choose when I consume that. I get some television news just by being in the same room when my folks are watching it. I suppose I should also include the occasional burst of news-related tweeting, but there's really only one person I'm reading at the moment anyway, so that doesn't amount to much. And that's...just about it.
I had developed a habit of watching a lot of news commentary online. Like, constant background noise for my every waking, non-working moment levels. I had already cut that out, because I either got a bad case of the existential dread from it or I tuned it out in self-defense anyway. But I still listened to several politics and current events based podcasts, and now I'm giving them a miss more often than not.
They are good podcasts! It's not their fault! I just realized that it wasn't telling me anything new. I could--and did--listen to multiple shows in a row, all reacting to the same handful of recent events. The takes might not all be the same, though they were certainly of a type, but it all amounted to the same basic message. Since they were also preaching to the converted on just about every issue, I realized there wasn't any real point to subjecting myself to that.
To be clear, it's not that I don't care about those events. It's just that I didn't need hours of analysis about them. I still respond however I'm going to in practical terms--giving money, signal boosting, sending hate mail via carrier pigeon to my elected representatives, whatever--without the endless commentary.
Instead, I've started listening to all the other podcasts I had been ignoring for months. Because, see, I didn't have time to listen to comedy or history or fiction; I was too busy giving myself a news ulcer. Suddenly, I'm going, uh, shoot, which one do I pick next and why don't I have more episodes downloaded already? Because I've blown through episode after episode of Nice Things. (Okay, sometimes the Nice Things are actually Historical Rather Unpleasant Things, but the misbehavior of 14th century nobility doesn't give me a lot of angst.)
I had developed a habit of watching a lot of news commentary online. Like, constant background noise for my every waking, non-working moment levels. I had already cut that out, because I either got a bad case of the existential dread from it or I tuned it out in self-defense anyway. But I still listened to several politics and current events based podcasts, and now I'm giving them a miss more often than not.
They are good podcasts! It's not their fault! I just realized that it wasn't telling me anything new. I could--and did--listen to multiple shows in a row, all reacting to the same handful of recent events. The takes might not all be the same, though they were certainly of a type, but it all amounted to the same basic message. Since they were also preaching to the converted on just about every issue, I realized there wasn't any real point to subjecting myself to that.
To be clear, it's not that I don't care about those events. It's just that I didn't need hours of analysis about them. I still respond however I'm going to in practical terms--giving money, signal boosting, sending hate mail via carrier pigeon to my elected representatives, whatever--without the endless commentary.
Instead, I've started listening to all the other podcasts I had been ignoring for months. Because, see, I didn't have time to listen to comedy or history or fiction; I was too busy giving myself a news ulcer. Suddenly, I'm going, uh, shoot, which one do I pick next and why don't I have more episodes downloaded already? Because I've blown through episode after episode of Nice Things. (Okay, sometimes the Nice Things are actually Historical Rather Unpleasant Things, but the misbehavior of 14th century nobility doesn't give me a lot of angst.)
