Nearly 20 years ago the Ricky Gervais Show became one of the first massively successful podcasts.
I listened to it at the time and really enjoyed it.
The unexpected star of the show was Ricky’s producer and friend Karl Pilkington.
Numerous lines from the show became things my friends and I would quote to each other.
Much like The League Of Gentlemen, The Fast Show and The Simpsons in previous years.
There’s one of Karl’s lines that I still reference occasionally.
More and more in recent years actually.
Karl was talking about finding out bad news that had actually happened a long time ago.
And how that wasn’t as bad as something that just happened.
“That’s not news, it’s olds” he said.
Much like a fair proportion of things you see reported on social media now.
The clickbait headline that says some version of “Famous person says / does something slightly controversial”.
And when you read the article, they, for example, actually put it in their autobiography 40 years ago (or similar).
Or maybe they said it in passing to someone last year, but it’s very much framed as they’ve done some massive public announcement about it now.
It’s what you could call “outrage p0rn”.
Design solely to generate interaction on the page of the poster.
Even the reports of stuff that’s actually happening now often don’t actually report anything new.
They just regurgitate what’s already known but reframe it slightly to generate more content and more outrage
Now more than ever in history, it’s beneficial to be selective with what information we allow into our head.
From the media.
Both conventional and social.
And from other people.
If we allow it to, the information coming into our brain will tell us that things are way worse than they actually are.
We struggle to create a balance that allows us to enjoy life.
If our mood and mental health is anything less than where we would like it to be………
Being selective with the inputs that we allow to affect that is essential (surrounding yourself with positive, like minded people in an intimidation free atmosphere at RISE can be part of that —> www.myrise.co.uk/apply) .
Much love,
Jon ‘An idiot abroad’ Hall
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RISE in Macclesfield was established in 2012 and specialise in Group Personal Training weight loss programmes for those that don’t like the gym and find diets boring and restrictive!
