By Melanated Glow
It takes a small amount of conscious observation to see what types of media is allowed online. It takes but a moment to venture into your memory bank to recall what was and wasn’t allowed on television in the past. It doesn’t take long to conclude that the rules governing what is considered appropriate content has become more lenient over time. This is evident in all forms of media, as the music, television shows, movies and now online imagery and videos all have gradually allowed more content that was censored in the past. But why is there such a difference in what is allowed on the radio today than just 60 years ago?
Culture is the immune system of the community according to Dr. Marimba Ani, and it contains what is considered acceptable behavior for all its participants. These decisions include what is desired around the youth for proper exposure. This has been affected by a national desensitizing. Slowly, over the last six decades or so, we have come to accept disrespectful and vulgar behavior as the norm.
There was a point in time there were fight videos trending regularly. We always fought in our neighborhoods but not for the purpose of recording and sharing with the World. Instead of a fight being over when it was done, the video gave our private altercations a longer lifespan and exposure to people outside of the neighborhood. When these videos were going viral, they were not characterized as being offensive or vile. These videos were not removed or blocked from social media, and instead these violent videos were able to be shared to even the youngest viewers.
The fight videos were part of the beginning of recording and posting our conflicts and the desensitizing of what was allowed online. Let’s face it, our people desire and sometimes crave attention. Once someone goes viral for anything, there are groups of individuals attempting to attain the same outcome. The fights got worse and worse. They went from adults fighting to children fighting to get the initial wow factor. Multiple people fighting one person was allowed and viewed as if it were a television show. Instead of stopping a brutal 5 on 1 attack, this era bred a generation of people to record the episode.
What is allowed in the media is a part of a conversation with the powers that be. The officials making the decisions typically have a handle on the pulse of the people and what they will or will not allow. In the past, television married couples could not sleep in the same bed. The bedroom in the “I Love Lucy” show is an example of a TV set with the then culturally acceptable two twin beds. Later on there were shows like “Family Matters” where the bedroom of the married couple was not a set at all to “Married with Children” where there was one shared bed that wasn’t normally used.
The gradual allowance of former censored content reminds me of how a child tests the waters. The media intentionally included taboo, private, or non-age appropriate activities, paraphernalia, etc. to observe the response of the masses to determine how much they could push the envelope. Slow and consistent wins the race as in the Tortoise and the Hare. Fast forward to today and we now have Black people getting killed by the police viewed by a recording of those that chose to be a phone holding bystander instead of saving the life of another person.
When we fast forward to today, there is homosexuality in our faces on almost every television show and discussed on every radio station. The drastic change brings culture into question. Was the regalness of our thought process a part of us, or did we adopt these ideologies because we deeply desired them? Do we do whatever the majority considers acceptable even if they are controlled by a hidden source with a hidden agenda? Or simply have we just lost our way?
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