BREAKING NEWS AT FIVE ‘O CLOCK! Angry internet sex toy reviewer calls local news stations a “Fuckbucket”- What does it -mean-?
..Okay, while the news hasn’t gotten QUITE that stupid yet, on our local level they’re getting quite dry for content. This has lead to multi-week coverages of the “trash tax walkout” issue, where a council member decided to walk out of a meeting to prevent a vote being held to raise taxes on something we’ve already had two significant raises on in the past year. Universally people think he was a pretty cool guy for doing it, but the local news stations seem to think it’s more productive to whatever goal they are working towards to paint the guy as an irresponsible child- for two weeks straight.
When they aren’t picking a random upstanding member of the community to chastise, they’re usually making 5 minute TV spots about issues such as “How to make meals in your slow cooker”, “What’s your favorite Halloween candy?” and of course “What to do if you are attacked by a dog”. The last one would have been relevant, except that they did not actually provide any answers. They, instead, asked a bunch of people who had never been attacked by dogs what they would do, and they also showed the same clip of a man in a bite-suit getting attacked by a trained police dog about 12 times through the segment.

Of course, covering stupid things that don’t mean anything at all isn’t the only thing the news is good for- Their other talent? Horrifying the living shit out of you. Do you need to know about a couple shaking their baby to death while you have your morning coffee? ‘Cause you’re going to know now. Also, there was a fire and three brutal murders. HAVE A GREAT FUCKING DAY THOUGH.
As someone who works outside a lot, going door to door in neighborhoods I don’t know well, talking to people I don’t know and who I don’t care to know, finding out these things only makes my job harder. While some people may get off to seeing pictures of violent crimes and hearing about others getting shot, unless the news is that the culprit was caught- I don’t really want to know. The worst part about this is that they will intersperse the death, rape, and general horror between things you really do need to know, like the weather and traffic delays, if there are any. They taunt you, hinting that MAYBE the weekend will be warmer- OR WILL IT?! You have to sit through their shenanigans for 10-15 minutes to get to the weather report, and it’s most likely changed a lot over the past week- making it impossible to tune in just Monday and be set for the week, unless you want to get rained or snowed on.

So, maybe murder isn’t enough for you. Maybe you’re immune. How about rape? Pedophilia? The news will find your vice and prey on it, and to get maximum button-pressing power they will likely try to shove all of these things into their 30-60 minute block. By the time you leave for work, you should either be completely desensitized to any and all violence, laughing at death’s face, or you’ll be like most people- Paranoid to the max, carrying mace, three tasers, two cell phones and with a max security home alarm that only unlocks via a retina scan.

I hate the news because they hate me. They hate me, you, and everyone else around us. They waste my time, and make me paranoid- focusing on all the bad in the world while keeping a perfect smile on their faces. When there’s a casualty, they’ll be the first to know- all fighting like rabid dogs for a scrap of meat, trying to get the best shot of the deceased, the assaulted, the beaten, the betrayed, for some morbid and yet totally nonsensical reason. Almost universally people dislike hearing about such things on the news, and yet they claim the constant bloodbath increases ratings. Perhaps it’s just that nobody has a choice- we all need to watch the news sometimes, and we can’t just turn it off during the morbid parts or we may miss out on whatever it is we need to know. The news is a vital tool for those not able to get the weather and traffic on the go, and sometimes they DO have things relevant to our every day lives- and they abuse that position of power and that sense of need to give us the exact opposite of what we need to start or end our day. So yes… I hate the news.