My philosophy on the media industry ~ 2011-04-06

The music that you hear played on the airwaves is controlled by only a few large companies; they choose the artists that they think they can sell, and they shove these artists down our throats by playing the songs over and over until we get used to them. Then we buy their stuff.

This industry lives for the next big thing. The vast majority of artists who sign with the large companies never make money, and neither do the companies. Then a blockbuster hit artist comes along and sells ridiculously huge volume and everybody gets rich.

The big problem I have is that the industry crushes individual creativity. They do everything they can to make the stars look so good that we will think they are something better than what we could do on our own... but they're not! Do you really think that the teenage stars of the day (whoever they may be this week) are any more talented, any better looking, than what you will find in almost any high school you visit? Absolutely not. You just can't get to be that good of a singer when you're a teenager. What you can do is get a big company with a lot of money to give you the best outfits, the best hairdo, the best lighting, the latest audio processing gear, the latest special effects...

In short, our local talent is or can be just as good as anything you see on TV or hear on the radio, if we cultivate that talent with plenty of growth opportunities. We should celebrate our local talent; we should have more live music and less over-processed, homogenized, top-40 garbage. We should turn off the radio and learn to sing and play instruments again; we should turn off the TV and participate in live plays again, play sports again and go on great outdoor adventures again rather than just watching shows about them.

We are losing our lives to the media industry. And while our skills and talents go undeveloped, our minds are constantly being assaulted with spiritual garbage. Moral decay and gutter-level standards are as commonplace as offensive language, because those in control of the content always seek for the lowest common denominator.

It's time to turn off most of the mainstream media and once again find the lost fulfillment of entertaining ourselves.