AlterNet: What Awful Reality TV and Suburban Living Have to Do With the Tea Party's Lack of Empathy
Interesting in light of our discussion today about networked individualism. These people feel an attachment to a group, but one that emphases their individualism--their lack of connection to those physically the closest to them. The idea of the function of reality tv is also interesting.
To help explain this phenomena, we might remember another signifying characteristic of the Tea Party: despite the enthusiasm for country music, Tea Partiers proliferate in suburban and exurban districts.
Interesting in light of our discussion today about networked individualism. These people feel an attachment to a group, but one that emphases their individualism--their lack of connection to those physically the closest to them. The idea of the function of reality tv is also interesting.
reality TV signals understanding that it’s filling the gossip void in the lives of lonely suburbanites, by filling the set design with familiar aspects of suburban lives, but then populating it with the real people experiencing dramas that are shut off from suburban dwellers who don’t have enough interconnections to gossip about their own neighbors.
