DL Open Thread Monday September 20th 2021
Covid-19 vaccine for children ages 5-11 takes a step closer. (Which means the same idiots just took two steps backwards).
A ‘Missing White Girl!’ story dominated the weekend. Meanwhile Native American women are murdered and sexually assaulted at rates as high as 10 times the average in the United States—crimes overwhelmingly committed by individuals outside the Native American community.
Ted Lasso is a very good TV program. And yet, I’m a little queasy about how streaming services model is taking over TV.
The streaming model is taking over TV because providers have abandoned free broadcasting. There is nominally free over the air broadcasting of local TV, but after the US digital conversion for broadcast TV, somehow the new digital signals have far less coverage than the old analog signals. Reception is spotty to impossible unless you have line-of-sight access to the tower.
So the only option for local broadcast channels is expensive cable or internet TV packages, which many people can’t afford, and others reject out of pique (like me). For a while there was Locast for local TV, but shut down when sued by the big broadcasters. Most broadcasters now offer apps that allow access to certain content but usually block their premium content.
Also because on-demand is better than when-we-want-you-to-see-it.
“on-demand is better than when-we-want-you-to-see-it.”
Except on-demand costs money compared to free broadcasting. So maybe better only for the privileged. Used to be that your dad strapped an antenna to the chimney and we watched all the channels for free.
I remember when if I missed “A Charlie Brown Christmas” when it aired, I had to wait a year to see it again. Frustrating, but somehow it made it more special.
They even called such shows “specials.”
Could they flog this missing-white-girl story any harder? It’s not exactly a mystery that her boyfriend killed her, they just want to cover his disintegrating alibi, whatever it is, in real time. It’s like a reality show that telegraphed its finale in the first episode.
The fact that there’s a mention of this story in these comments alone speaks to its reach beyond the basic events. What intrigues me is how overt the lawyer has been about dissuading the fiancé from talking with the police. Like, at all. None of the usual soft selling of cooperation to come; stone silence. And the discussion in other forums about how this is exactly the right legal course of action as well as discussions of protections afforded by the fifth amendment, the cops are never your friends so say nothing, and so on. I find the bravado of the “I ain’t saying nothing, come and get me if you can”, in the face of so many obvious shortfalls in his story simultaneously galling and gutsy. And that, up until recently, he just might get away with it with such an approach was unsettling.
I haven’t read a word beyond the headlines. I haven’t had to. They’re flogging it mercilessly and the evidence is you, not me.
Well to be fair, these “Missing White Girl” stories that get so much national traction usually involve other aspects that give it an extra bit of intrigue and interest. The “my god, what happened? could it happen to me?” type situation. In this case, a known (?) social influencer goes missing and her fiancé waltzes back home, in her van, says nothing to anyone for days, and when her parents start asking questions his lawyer seems to get off making it vocally obvious that he instructed him not to cooperate with the police in any way. Then, said fiancé goes “missing”. Add in the previous interactions with the Wyoming police and conditions get primed for amped up public interest.
Anne Marie Fahey? Joan Bennet Ramsey? Elizabeth Smart? The Black Dalilah? Jack the ripper victims? Hell, Monica Lewinsky and Amanda Knox. All had back stories that drove the narratives beyond the heinous acts themselves and made those names that anyone reading this would recognize. Tl;dr – I dispute the assertion that ignorance of social ills inflicted within other cultures drives the uptake “white girl missing” stories.
Ha!
GeoBumm: I don’t think it’s just missing white girls that drive the narrative.
Also GeoBumm: presents a list of missing white girls of the past.
im split on streaming. on the one hand, I really hate the consolidation of media into 3 entities. on the other, it is a more consumer friendly product.
For a brief moment, Netflix + Hulu got you most of what you wanted to see on TV without the need for a cable package and way cheaper. Then, predictably, the networks caught on. They pulled content, created their own streaming service and now its WAY more expensive to have “all” the shows than it ever was “back in the day”
On the other hand, get a couple friends and you only have to pay for one lol. they have tried to cut down on account sharing, but people demand the ability to use the service on all 4 of their various devices wherever they go. If they clamp down too hard, pirating will make a major comeback and they’ll have to compromise again to make money. Squirrels and Hawks.
As far as public access… that’s the internet now. it does take some sleuthing, but there is some excellent independent content out there.
Seems to fit on this thread: Netflix notified us that someone from Saudi Arabia has ‘added’ themselves to our account.
If you can’t afford a bleeping Netflix account in Saudi Arabia, you don’t DESERVE a Netflix account.