You know I couldn't quite decide how to respond to this question so I decided to do the sensible thing - go and read more about what I'm talking about. So I went to Google and searched for Oprah, and indeed could have saved the internet two queries by simply typing
www.oprah.com instead. I'm presented with the standard glamourous home page with the bold title "Oprah.com is your leading source for information about love, life, self, relationships, food, home, spirit and health." Doesn't that strike you as pretentious? That someone can just claim to be the source of all this wonderful information? She may draw on professionals and collate numerous different sources but it doesn't instantly make her an authority. Perhaps I'm being harsh and she's just the frontperson for a large collective of individuals attempting to make a positive contribution to humanity. Maybe she should give them some credit then.
So I looked beyond the title to the main chunk of the site. I'm presented with a story about the Olsen twins - I'm sure that'll make for some inciteful and philosophical reading right? It'll have their respective opinions on Zen Buddhism, the Iraq fiasco, maybe their thoughts on OPEC? But then I notice the abstract describes the story as being "Boys, clothes, moneytake an inside look into the lives of Mary-Kate and Ashley!" Can you spell superficial? We're meant to care?
Just above that we have a special feature, "Get in shape...". Sounds promising, trying to promote self improvement and facillitating people's ability to do so? Until you read the next line " ...in style! Colorful fleece sweatshirts, a pink terry jog set, t-shirts and more, all in the Oprah Boutique. Shop now to benefit the Angel Network." Look! It's another shameless corporate plug, with superficiality thrown in for good measure! Where do I sign up? The Angel Network? Now they're holier than me too? Here comes that P word again - pretentious.
By now I'm quietly chuckling to myself and wondering what other magic is in store for me. So I click the menu link for the show itself. There's the Olsen story, which I've already covered. Below, we have another story about Paris and Nicky Hilton (I personally thought it was Nicole Ritchey - sp? - but whatever), no doubt another probing expose. Anything else of note? "Meet these brave and bold women" Feminism with your meal anyone?
Perhaps my favourite feature is the forum quote at the bottom of each page - I really delighted in hearing 'soccergrl5's opinion on the Olsen twins. I'll give her this, she said something far more meaningful and well-worded than anything else on the site.
The Spirit and Self section is utter bull**** ripped straight from any number of feel good books every written, with a healthy dose of spiritualist hippy crap. And before anyone tells me I don't know what I'm talking about I dated a spiritualist for a while, I've heard all about meditation, channeling, readings, auras, natal charts and so on. I also really don't care. If this sort of stuff has any positive impact on your life, congratulations, that's great. It doesn't for me so I don't care. It's pretty simple. Features like "Life-Changing Questions" are redundant - apart from the fact most people should simply
know most of the crap in there, why do you
have to take risks? Who says you
have to do anything? I'll tell you who - you, if you're in any control of your life whatsoever. Otherwise, you're just an insecure puppet. "When Life Seems Unfair" - there's a great topic. Seems? Life IS unfair. Get used to it. Stop dreaming of an idealistic paradise and accept that whatever happens happens and make the best of it. We also have the standard promotional "Beauty from the Inside Out", advocating that inner beauty will overcome sheer physical ugliness. Bzzt.
Oprah is another person who attempts to take the living out of life by making light of people's problems and trying to advise others on what they should do. That's all very well and good but we're dealing with people who are generally mindless enough to take whatever is presented on these shows as gospel instead of weighing up the actual facts and making an informed decision for themselves. In effect, they allow their lives to be dictated to them instead of simply living, which I object too quite vehemently.
These shows make heroes and villains out of everyday people for no real reason except to bolster ratings. How many times have we seen "Troubled Teens" be trotted out for us all to marvel at? We're supposed to be surprised by another gothic, or a slut? Who cares? It's mindless garbage. The more we parade these people the more other people behave like them. We wind up with systemic problems in society. Every teenager faces issues - it's just an inherent part of growing up. If people spent more time living life and less time watching crap on Oprah the world would be a better place and I'd have to deal with less people asking about AI, fuel consumption and online play.
So there's my considerably long 2 cents. You want to post about how Oprah makes a positive impact on people's lives and genuinely helps people deal with reality? Go nuts. I believe if you feel your life was genuinely turned around by a talk show host out to make money, you're either really naive, really oblivious or really sad.
