American Writers Unable to Explore Important Concepts because of Modern Reader’s Sensitivity to Radical Thought

15/07/15

By Terry Scott Niebeling

Recently, across the internet and the written communication world, progressive and mind-expanding articles founded on important topics are going unpublished. Modern writers with unorthodox theories are unable to explore risqué thought due to hyper-sensitive audiences, and readers griping about hot-button issues being too offensive.

Moreover, articles covering themes such as race, gender, Kim Kardashian, and social political topics have become increasingly more tepid, tame, and less controversial, in hopes that new ideas about antiquated topics are not created; an understanding and epiphany of such strong subjects could result in outright ideological change.

This change would be so disruptive that entire publications and media organizations would flounder from lack of political and financial support from potential advertisers and wealthy corporations.

In an attempt to not offend everyone in the entire world — especially to keep their advertisement revenues and profits, news pundits and media sources have replaced thought-provoking articles with complete and utter euphemistic farces — modified articles.

These modified articles exist under the attractive guise of forward thinking headlines, which act as attention getters to draw the reader in, yet the meat of the piece itself comes across insipid and generally too soft to engage the reader to stay.

When asked about the reading level of most local and national publication’s content on relevant issues, a third grader with a second grader’s reading level responded, “Yeah, the news about race, gender, Caitlyn Jenner, and society are very fun — I like how I can read them in five seconds, while being barraged with a million ads about cereal, watches, prescription pills, and colorful toys… Can I go play? This tactic keeps me interested, and informed. I love crayons!”

Shrewd magazines and newspapers have kept a close eye on this familiar scenario, as it is crucial to their marketing campaigns. They want to make articles accessible to any, and every one old enough to buy the products which they advertise within their pages.

A major news source at a press conference Tuesday discussed this trend, “To be honest, we push our magazines to the largest demographics possible in order to get the highest gains from ad space and corporate donors. Yeah — no. We are focused on getting traffic to our sites — more visits the better, and physical materials in hands. At the end of the day we don’t concern ourselves with actual content, unless it upsets readers. We don’t care if the quality of the story suffers, as long as our newsstands get cleared, sites get viewed, and the money keeps rolling in…”

Nowadays the writer is at the mercy of what the general public thinks is acceptable or not, based on their opinion or belief in certain interests, even if that thinking is a malapropos of what is actually fact, one based on emotion and concern for personal image. The reader needs a good story to tell over the water cooler, not something that inspires co-workers to have a sea change shift in their precious psyche.

What a person can take away from this modern way of literary practice is that the old way is easier for the reader to consume — so keep it, it won’t hurt the reader’s feelings, and it keeps these savvy publications in business.

As for objective progressive thought, readers will be missing it at their own expense, to the publication and media’s chagrin, and profit.

The fact of the matter is, no reader wants to pick up an article, especially one based on opinion — projected as a verity, and become angered so much so that they are compelled to change their traditional ideas. This influence would muck up the tried and true concepts of the writing industry wholesale. That change would be a sheer and utter tragedy, one that the reader should not have to undergo.

The big takeaway is that the modern media is lukewarm for a reason, because of the modern writer’s concerns for the sensitive public, and for worry over their job security were they to go against the grain.

There is great concern of transforming the collective mind into one melting pot of contentment — lazy, half sated, into a way that is acceptable on every level to everyone, creating one main idea that is universally the same, unchanged. I hope that is okay with you.

(Terry Scott Niebeling lives in Minneapolis, MN and is Lead Writer & Curator @ mplsscene.com, dirtyterry.com, poetryfortheblind.com, and studentsandtuition.wordpress.com, Twitter @sirterryscott)