Take, for example, sitcoms. Almost every one of them bludgeons viewers with a ubiquitous "laugh track." The mere presence of a laugh track begs the question, "just how stupid is the average American television viewer?" Certainly, television executives everywhere are driven by ratings. Basically, high ratings tell the executives to "run with it" and low ratings tell them to unplug the life support. Based on a ratings tenet, laugh tracks must really be what viewers want to see/hear when watching TV. Nothing else explains how insulting it is to "tell" viewers where to laugh. "Hey viewer, we know this is going to be way over your head, so here's a little hint about when to laugh and what you think is funny." The existence of laugh tracks proves that ninety percenters must make up the majority of Nielsen households. If they didn't, and all the intelligent viewers found offence in such an obvious slight on their intelligence, then these laugh track sitcoms would fail miserably and intelligent, versus banal, humor would reign silently supreme. On the other hand, if the forty percent rule is really more descriptive of the American viewing audience than the ninety percent rule, the Writers Guild must be comprised of ninety percenters. A bunch of idiot television writers so unfunny they feel obligated to punctuate their lousy jokes with a condescending laugh track and too simple to figure out viewers don't like them. I'll let you be the judge, but I'm pretty certain one of the two groups--if not both--relies heavily on ninety percenter membership.
Sitcoms, however, are just one symptom of the overall disease. I recently happened upon America's Funniest Home Videos for the umpteenth time. Most, and for the sake of continuity I would argue ninety percent, of these videos simply aren't funny. The videos consist mainly of pets and kids doing really stupid things or men getting smacked in the testicles by pets or kids, interspersed with an occasional grandma falling into or off of something, due to the antics of pets and kids, and later needing hip replacement surgery. A quick Google search revealed that this show made its television debut in 1989 and on April 23, 2009 ABC announced they had renewed it for an incredible twentieth season. Really? This show has assailed human intelligence for twenty years. This fact alone should prove my earlier point about Nielsen households and ninety percenters. It should also illustrate the opposite about network executives. Unlike TV viewers, they are wealthy geniuses. Network executives give America exactly what it wants--a bunch of extremely inexpensive, sophomoric reality shows. Then they mockingly deride those TV viewers as they deposit enormous checks into banks they could easily afford to own.
Unfortunately, reality television isn't the only drivel out there. I don't want to fail to give TV game shows some credit. In 2005 NBC gave us Deal or No Deal that challenged average Americans to pit their wits against a tricky nemesis named mathematics. In 2007 Fox gave us Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader? which seriously called into question the quality of public education. Time Magazine in January of 2000 had the following to say about game shows in America nine years ago:
-----One of the keys to the success of these shows is the decision to use sub-Jeopardy! questions. "People feel 'I'm better than them,' while in the '50s you may have felt more comfortable saying you had never seen such a smart guy in your neighborhood as you saw on a quiz show," says NBC West Coast president Scott Sassa. Herb Stempel, the one who blew the whistle on the old Twenty-One, has a less upbeat take. "They want the people in the audience to pat themselves on the back and say, 'Gee, I knew the answer,'" he says. "The whole culture is getting dumbed down."-----
Here is a television executive who acknowledges game shows are being dumbed down to help viewers feel they are smarter than they really are. They truly are giving America what America wants. I argue that ninety percenters reign supreme in television viewing America, and since 99% of American households have at least one television, then ninety percent of people must be idiots. The jury is still out on the Writers Guild.
It's not just television entertainment that paints a stark, sad picture of ninety percenters. It's ALL OVER American culture. On August 1, 2007, the W35 Bridge, a major interstate thoroughfare in St. Paul, Minnesota, collapsed into the Mississippi and thirteen people died as a result. Shortly thereafter, a coal mine near Price, Utah caved in trapping six miners inside. Media coverage quickly put the bridge story on a back page while the mine story made endless headlines for weeks. Now don't get me wrong, both of these stories were, and are, tragedies, but which of the two is more relatable to every day life and should be to the general public as well? In the town where I live, I drive over a bridge crossing the Columbia River several times a day. The thought has certainly crossed my mind, "what would I do if, while crossing this bridge, it suddenly plummeted into the icy currents of the Columbia?" I honestly can't recall the last time I thought about what I would do if the seam of coal I was working suddenly precipitated a cave-in. In a move that defies all logic, ninety percenters demanded, and received, more information on a mine cave-in that couldn't affect them less, and less information on a bridge collapse that could happen to any one of them on any given day as they crisscross America's many highways.
News coverage is still more telling than that. In 2007 Anna Nicole Smith died suddenly in a hotel in Florida and actual news suddenly died at the same moment. I don't mean to sound cold, but what contribution did this woman make to society? Is her death really so important that all other news and information needed to be preempted for a solid week? Anna Nicole provided nothing that actually mattered to most Americans' lives--unless you consider large breasts and marrying an 89-year old oil tycoon for his money accomplishments. Regardless, news outlets couldn't report enough about her, let alone the custody hearings over her poor baby daughter that continued on for a good month.
Similarly, Micheal Jackson's passing, in 2009, virtually stopped hard news reporting. Unlike Anna Nicole Smith, Michael Jackson at least left behind a musical legacy, along with ethical questions about plastic surgery, as an excuse for the nauseating amount of press attention surrounding his demise. While I think "Don't Stop 'Till You Get Enough" is a great song, important questions like, "Where is Bubbles the chimp?" and "Where is MJ's body now?" called for serious, around-the-clock, investigative reporting. Now I admit a musical legacy is a wonderful thing to give to the world, but important events didn't stop happening while the world listened to all their favorite MJ hits on their iPods. In fact, Kim Jong-il, in North Korea, threatened both Japan and Hawaii with nuclear missiles that same week. Apparently, entertainment stories rivet Americans' attention like nuclear holocaust never could. Well, they at least rivet ninety percenters while everyone else is left with no choice other than to turn "the news" off.
In addition, look at the rise in popularity of shows like Inside Edition and Entertainment Tonight. Now we have to add TMZ to this list of truly horrid tabloid TV programs. This sort of information once belonged only in supermarket checkout lanes or the "society" page of the newspaper. Every "hard" news channel from CNN to Fox, and every newspaper from The New York Times to the "(insert your town here) Gazette" dedicates entire hours and pages to "entertainment" news (oxymoron). At CNN demand got so high producers decided to fill up spin-off network Headline News' three hour prime time as well. In fact, entertainment news has become so popular an entire cable network, E, has been built up around it and Barbara Walters' once hard-hitting interviews revolve more around getting celebrities to cry than asking world leaders insightful questions. Once again, America speaks and gets what they want--pure crap.
I truly believe the preponderance of evidence points to the ninety percent rule's undisputed existence. If anyone reading this still doesn't accept my assertion that ninety percent of people are idiots ninety percent of the time, at least concede a fifty-one percent majority and consider the underlying premise even more seriously. Society can only benefit when ninety percenters become ten percenters. Who knows, after determining which side of the ninety percent rule they fall on, ninety percenters just might gain the most benefit of all.
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