As I get older there is an indisputable fact I have become aware of: the more I ignore the news, the happier I am.
I first noticed this amazing mental health phenomenon about 7 years ago, when VICE began a show on HBO. I used to be a big fan of their brand as a young man, and I naturally thought I’d enjoy the show (I’m not a fan anymore: I applied to work there several times over the years and they would never give me the time of day, so fuck them).
At first, I have to say: I enjoyed the show. Every episode they would shed light on a topic I was not aware of. It was always very dark and twisted stuff that was happening all around the globe, and they’d always send a young journalist that looked similar to me: nerdy, 20-something, wearer of glasses, Ivy League education, etc. That gave things an extra kick and made it even more wild as I imagined myself in the shoes of the hipster journalist.
To give you an example of how crazy things could get on this show: in one episode I remember, they featured a journalist travelling to some shithole third world country to find out if he could purchase a baby on the black market. Sure enough, some guy they found said he could get the journalist said baby within a certain time frame, and VICE media’s hidden cameras filmed the whole thing go down. (Maybe I’m wrong about the exact details, it’s been years since I saw this and I’m not watching it again. I don’t really care about the specifics: the point of bringing that up is to illustrate my point below).
At the end of every episode, VICE would feature Shane Smith sitting in a chair and concluding what we just saw. There would be no solution. There would be no logical end to what we just witnessed, just a fat fuck billionaire sitting in a chair talking. Eventually, I realized: every week this show would do nothing but depress me. It offered zero solutions to anything, it would just shove a bunch of misery in my face and end with, “Here. Deal with it.”
Now, fast forward 7 years later. The news of 2020, and the way we get information isn’t radically different than it was in 2013, yet it kinda feels that way. Back then we had all of the things we do now (Twitter, HBO, etc), but something about how we share news feels worse for some reason. It’s a constant pummelling over the head with negative shit over and over. Every single day. The news is like a fucking whack-a-mole of bad vibes: “Hey have you seen the video of the guy being murdered by a police officer? Hey have you seen the video of the old man’s head cracking open on the pavement? Hey did you read that apology letter ___________ wrote after it was discovered he likes teenagers? Hey did you hear Justin Bieber is releasing a new album and is richer than you ever will be in your entire life? Hey did you hear Selena Gomez licked another donut? Hey did you hear she dumped some guy? Hey did you hear that guy addressed the whole thing on SNL? Hey did you…..”
Sometimes I feel that the words “news” and “noise” are similar for a reason: they’re essentially the same shit. It’s usually just extraneous shit that has no bearing to my life. When I wake up, my feet touch the ground, my cat meows good morning to me in Russian, I put one foot in front of the fucking other, and start my day. What business do I have reading about the orphans in Uganda or wherever? It’s awful, and I’m not denying that, but at the same time I do feel a lot of what the news has become now is completely unhelpful. Our culture has made constantly ingesting bad news a whole industry, like it’s pornography or something.
The average headline now isn’t designed to inform you. It isn’t coming from a place of purity. It’s geared to make you click, and drive up the engagement to whatever news source is putting it out there. That’s why you tend to see headlines like, “Covid cases are rising in your area. These are 29 things you need to do…..” The average joe at home lacking metacognition will read that on the computer, and think, “Holy shit. I need to read this list immediately.” Why is that guy so reactive? What would have happened if that guy didn’t click the article? Would he have been anymore informed than he was already? There are probably only 2 or 3 things a person needs to do right now: wash your hands, don’t go out much, keep yourself occupied. The news is just feeding off human nature’s fear.
It’s like sex in pop culture: biologically, men like hot women. Sex still sells. So that’s why there will always be billboards and advertisements with hot women: marketers know that the average person has a desire to see things of that nature. Same goes for the news: if they can convince people they’re in danger, or something crazy happened in their city, they know they’ve got your attention.
I don’t watch or read the news anymore than I have to. It drains my energy, and it’s not good for my health. You can call it having my head in the sand, naive, or whatever you like, but the fact of the matter is that I’m right.
First of all: the very first American newspaper was printed in 1690. What did we do before? We were fine. Since the advent of the newspaper it’s all been downhill from there. The news should just be a resource you can look at, but 9/10 if something major happens, you will probably hear about it from someone in your life regardless. If you let the news come to you from the average and idiots among us rather than seeking it out, you might find yourself happier. Most of the meaningless shit not worth reporting disappears within 24 hours anyway.
I think humans have grown too accustomed to hearing about every minor detail in the world that doesn’t really need to be heard about. It sounds like a Dr. Seuss line or something, but it’s true: what is important to my life is usually what is happening in my life. If I stub my toe in the kitchen, I don’t think I need to hear about what happened with the Prime Minister that morning or whatever. People need to return to sanity and focus on the improvement of their own lives rather than variables they cannot control. It’s not a benefit to your life, so don’t worry about it.
