So, here we are in a Britain with kids wandering aimlessly around in packs.
These bored, restless and feral latchkey kids are going out and mugging, nicking cars, and generally terrorising people. It doesn’t matter where they live in the UK. It’s not a town thing. It’s not a country thing. It’s everywhere. Why?
Soap operas and Reality TV.
Where once upon a time children felt loved and the centre of attention, and life revolved around the family and them, it now revolves around Corrie and Big Brother. Parents have no time for their kids any more. Instead, they are hooked up to the crack cocaine-like bliss that they get from Eastenders and I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here, saying “Shhh” whenever the child dares speak. Even when a conversation is allowed it is either during the commercials or with one eye permanently distracted by the live feed where ‘real’ people may or may not be about to have sex or beat each other up.
This neglect and child abuse is so prevalent that storylines in the soaps will even reflect it. However, rather than get the message and look at their own lives and question why they are falling apart and why their kids are causing so much grief, the concern is concentrated on who’s going to find out who’s the real father of a soap character’s baby. They are far too busy living the lives of the housemates to notice their own household is in ruins, as they shout at their own questioning child who dares to want to speak to and get comfort and love from his mother whilst Trisha or Kyle is on.
On those rare occasions when they are out of range of their TVs, they’ll be thinking not about their family, but about the pretend families they live to watch every evening. They’ll even discuss them at great length with their friends and neighbours, and buy magazines dedicated to them.
When faced with problems Christians often ask “What would Jesus do?” In the average UK household it’s “What would Grant Mitchell do?”
The reason they have no idea what to do is because their brains have been completely destroyed by their addiction, and they only know how to look on in ore as storylines unfold before them, with problem and then solution all decided by the writers and played out by the actors, with no need for thinking on the part of the viewer. They have no idea how to make decisions on their own. They have no idea how to deal with the real life problems surrounding them. They have no idea that there are real life problems surrounding them.
The addiction used to be a lot less when there were less soaps and reality TV shows. But now there are soaps 7 days a week, and there’s live streaming of reality TV.
Now they can sit in their own filth and dysfunctional household watching strangers in a TV-set based dysfunctional household. We look on in horror when the addiction causing child neglect is drugs or alcohol related, but for some reason we just accept this new addiction as if it’s ok.
Big Brother ran for nearly four months over the summer. Pity the poor kids who were on holiday and really would have liked to do something with mum or dad, but had to spend all that time just forgotten about and amusing themselves whilst they tried but failed to compete with the live streaming that’s far more important than they are.True, some of the kids gave up and just sat there trying the experience as they probably do with heroin addicted or alcoholic parents, letting it dull their brains to the sadness of the neglect they feel. Soon they knew exactly who to boo on eviction night rather than cry for their own sad life. But others were out in the streets causing problems and difficulties to those not already at home watching celebrities having sex or a plastic duck tend to farm animals.
Would the addicts all still be watching if all that happened on Hollyoaks was everybody just sat watching the live streaming from Big Brother? Sadly, I suspect they would.
England's England 