Never Mind The Quality Feel The Advertising

So far, I have found no interest
in the widely distributed wares
of the many infomedia platforms 
that stream images everywhere
that are supported by adverts
for companies I have never heard of.
Where I wonder why they pay so much
when with the advert they have no point
of contact with so many who are advertised to.

What good reason do they have to be that ubuitious
whilst being otherwise so competely anonymous?

What I do understand is that the adverts exist
to make the programmes seem less like moving wallpaper.  
 

No Need To Shout

I remember when the nearest
most citizens got to seeing their leaders
was on one of the three or four channels
of the analogue television that the UK gov't
regulated between 1964 and 1991.

When the viewer disliked the speaker
they did not do what it was logical to do;
mute the sound or change the channel,
or even better turn the set off for a while
the better to do something more engaging.

The politician made the viewers anger
alive enough for the viewer to forget
that these speeches were pre-recorded,
and if they had read it as later as a script
they would be calmer in their disagreement.

Thus the British shouted at recordings
of leaders who they disagreed with,
with a predictability that were it not so normalised
-their predecessors had shouted at the radio-
it should have been seen as more alarming.

The public did not care that their
television set could not hear them,
once set off  they could not stop
behaving profoundly irrationally.

Now we have other means
of venting our spleen
and renting our bile out
to whoever might want it,
like twitter and facebook.

But recycled bile has very little flavour.

Not So Pretty Polly

I must surely be one of relatively few people
to cover their television set when it is switched off.
The cloth has not been moved for several years now.

Originally when I started this
it was to reduce the impact of the set on the room.
The cloth also helped me resist the urge to boredom
when it stopped me using programmes as background noise
when it was on but I had no regard for programme content.

My grandparents were the same
but with greater self discipline.
The thick pleated cloth that covered their 1950's set
-which worked until 1980-drew the eye towards it,
but it made one forget the talking box underneath.

To many viewers, early television programmes
seemed rather like an alien bird imitating human life
in monologues spoken with no internal understanding.
Like the tame birds of old, the cloth went over their cage
to stop them talking when they were required to be quiet.

What sort of cover
should offer each other
to reduce the noise we don't need
when it starts from inside our heads?