Snuff Films By Proxy

It's amazing what people will watch. Like actually point the mouse at the little arrow on the screen and click play. This isn't on CNN, or like some ten car pile up on the highway (which, honestly, recquired gawking). No, this is “Sea World trainer pulled into water by ponytail and drowned by Shamu.” This is “Georgian Olympic Luger thrown from sled and violently killed at 90 miles per hour.” I guess it's not a snuff film if it's an accident.
Maybe it stems from 9/11 and the year that followed when the only thing anyone ever broadcast was a snuff film on a mass scale. 3000 people getting crushed by tons and tons of steel and concrete. Over and over again. The tower stands. The tower falls. The tower stands. The tower falls. You could even watch it in slow motion. The plane approaches. The plane rips through the building. The plane approaches. The plane rips through the building. The exact moment of how many lost lives broadcast over and over and over. My mother says violent movies have left us desensitized but I think it's something else. I think real life has fucked us up a lot more than Quentin Tarantino ever did.
I read CNN.com every morning and count how many of the top ten headlines involve grisly murders, accidental deaths, or any sort of horrendous wrongdoing. And people wonder why American's aren't happy anymore. It's not the recession, it's the constant influx of fucked-up-ness courtesy of the digital age. I mean, really think about it. Have you ever noticed how unhappy everyone around you is? I work at a store, and I would venture to say that 75% of the customers hate their lives. Granted, it's a low rent part of a Kansas City suburb, but still! Almost everyone has a gripe, almost everyone thinks $6 for a DVD is too expensive. Almost all of the parents yell at their kids. Everyone just seems like they'd be better off dead.
Not that I'm saying everyone should kill themselves, I'm just wondering why people don't just cheer the fuck up. I'm not the happiest motherfucker of all time or anything like that, I'll admit, this shit sucks. The working minimum wage with no chance of moving up or getting a raise. The living paycheck to paycheck. The never having any money ever. But those are little things once everything gets itemized. Those are small, other things, like breathing and girlfriend and dog and free time and making about $500 a month for writing about stuff I love. Those things greatly outweigh the bullshit. But the bullshit is always on the surface, and I don't think most people can get much further beyond that.
And maybe that's why people watch luger's getting thrown from their sleds and killer whales killing people. Just to see how bad shit can really get. Maybe they'll start watching teenage girls getting their brains blown out by masked men next. Or people setting puppies on fire. Or those PETA videos that make you not want to eat meat for like, a day before you realize you really want some chicken tacos. They're all distractions. Really weird distractions. And I don't remember this being such a big thing as a kid. I remember Northern Exposure being a really weird distraction. I remember peeking out into the living room as a kid, with that goofy theme music with that stupid moose walking through that little Alaskan town. I actually watched the first three seasons of that show a few years ago to see what I was missing. It was actually pretty good.
Anyway, I don't watch whales eating their trainers but that doesn't mean I don't not want to watch those things. I mean, I don't, I'm content reading about them and getting that “serves 'em right” attitude, but I always have that decision making moment. To click or not to click. That is always the question. And I don't. But then, you know, it's on CNN at my parents house and there's no avoiding it. And it seems like everyone thinks that's disrespectful, but that doesn't mean that they're not entertained. Snuff films by proxy are the new big thing. Time to step up your game, Tarantino.