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Underwhelmed
by Information Overload
by Mad Dog
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CNN Headline News
recently subdivided the screen into fourteen squares, rectangles,
crawls, headlines, stock tickers, and a secret compartment or two if you
know where to look. |
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Watching the news lately
has given me a case of information overload, which is pretty amazing
considering they’re hardly giving us any solid facts. It’s not their
fault there’s almost no hard news coming out of Afghanistan, the
Pentagon, or Dick “Didn’t he used to be Vice President?”
Cheney’s secret hideaway. That’s why so much of what they’re
running is fluff. You know, stories like how to tell Sweet ‘N Low from
anthrax (anthrax makes your tea taste bitter), which gas masks the Paris
designers are showing for winter (Gianni Versace’s Halt Couture
collection), and how Ben Lading, a car key polisher in Little Pines, SC,
has been getting bombarded by crank telephone calls, though strangely
most of them are asking if his refrigerator is running.
No, the information overload is
because my TV screen is cluttered with, well, everything. CNN Headline
News, which used to be pretty straightforward, recently subdivided the
screen into fourteen squares, rectangles, crawls, headlines, stock
tickers, and a secret compartment or two if you know where to look. I
can hear the newscaster; see what he or she is talking about in a window
so small I need a magnifying glass to tell whether the dot’s a person,
place, or thing; look at a weather map of the U.S. complete with storm
fronts, temperature readings, and squiggles that must mean something to
somebody; check out sports scores ranging from football to Fiji-rule jai
alai; follow the stock market; read news messages scrolling across the
bottom; and keep tabs on what number has been called at the bakery down
the block. The truth is, the last one is the only thing I’m really
interested in. I hate standing in line.
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This means
they’re going to have to come up with new ways to set themselves apart
from the competition, which means it won’t be long before we see
pop-ups on the news. |
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Apparently they patterned this new look after the computer
desktop, where you can have a lot of different windows open at once.
What they forgot is that on the computer you can click one window and
let it take up the whole screen. You can also move it, resize it, and
close it. I never thought I’d see the day when I wished there was a
little “X” in the upper right hand corner of my TV screen.
Luckily they haven’t taken the
computer metaphor to its logical conclusion. Yet. But don’t be
surprised if they add one more window and your TV locks up, displaying a
bright blue screen with an incomprehensible message that tells you to
hit Ctrl-Alt-Del. Of course that won’t work so you’ll have to turn
the TV off and start it up again. Get used to it. At the rate they’re
putting computer chips in everything and wanting to hook them up to the
Internet it won’t be long until we have to reboot our microwave oven,
Dustbuster, and shower massage at least twice a day.
In their quest to give us continual
news about something which doesn’t have fresh news constantly,
they’ve resorted to repetition. While they read the same news stories
about every 10 minutes, they’ve condensed the rate of the crawl on the
bottom of the screen. It repeats about every 30 seconds.
“AMERICA ON ALERT...Bush to
school children: Bombs fall down, go boom...Gary, Indiana only city in
nation without anthrax scare...Don’t you just love Ashleigh
Banfield’s new
hair color?...Mail order talcum powder company files for
bankruptcy...Nothing else happened in the world...Hah! Hah! Just
kidding...No we’re not...Bush to school children: Bombs fall down, go
boom... Experts say Kabul can be pronounced 16 ways, we came up with a
17th...SF Giants won the National League pennant...Just kidding. Wanted
to see if you were still awake...Dow fall down, go boom...Afghan
refugees receive airlifted food, mistakenly wash with Captain
Crunch...In case you didn’t catch it the last 1,498 times it scrolled
by this hour, Bush to school children: Bombs fall down, go boom...”
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Don’t be
surprised if the next time George Bush holds a press conference a pop-up
bloops: “Still mispronounces words but now everyone thinks
it’s adorable.” |
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Originally
these constant crawls were confined to MSNBC, CNBC, and CNN Headline
News. Then Fox News got into it, as did the local newscasts. This means
they’re going to have to come up with new ways to set themselves apart
from the competition, which means it won’t be long before we see
pop-ups on the news.
Pop-ups are those message bubbles
which show up on the screen with a “bloop!” and elucidate you
with vaguely interesting, totally useless information. They were born on
VH1’s Pop-Up Video. Then they showed up on Nick at Night where
they blooped their way through The Brady Bunch. And now
they’re appearing in a derivative form on Blind Date, though
you wouldn’t know this because you don’t watch it (wink! wink!).
Don’t be surprised if the next time
George Bush holds a press conference a pop-up bloops: “People
used to think he was a wimp.” Then one will say: “His father held
the same job and had his own war.” Yet another will declare: “Still
mispronounces words but now everyone thinks it’s adorable.”
When they air the next taped
statement from Osama bin Laden we’ll be treated to pop-ups saying:
“Turban dry-cleaning bill is 27 Afghanis a week”, “Has lived in 45
caves in the last 21 days”, and “Craves attention because he’s one
of 51 children.”
It will be a welcome relief from that
redundant crawl at the bottom of the screen. And more entertaining than
watching “Pink Lady and Jeff Week” on the Weakest Link. Now
if there was only an “X” in the upper right hand corner of the stock
ticker and weather windows...
©2001 Mad Dog
Productions, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
These columns appear in better newspapers across the country.
Read them. Nothing will pop up. I promise.
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