Not to say that I've watched nothing. I've been mooching streaming services and sailing the high seas for a while.
But I'm driving pretty much across the entire east coast of the US to visit my parents for Christmas. So I've stopped in hotels and such, and with nothing else to do I've turned on the TV. And holy shit, the propaganda is blatant. I don't know if its because I've been removed from it for so long or what.
WWF ads using 8 year old cropped videos of Polar Bears on ice. Donate now or they'll die to climate change! Be scared!
A drug ad for some drug to remove a side effect of some other brain-altering chemicals, anti-depressants probably. You finally got your mind sorted out thank to other drugs but now you've got involuntary hand or face movements. Take our drug too! "It's not fully understood how it works but it's believed to work" Literally telling you that.
Government propaganda about kids 5 and older being eligible for the clot shots. Video of children running around playing. Having fun. Being kids. And they still included shots of children in fucking masks.
Not to mention the fact that not a single commercial features solely a white heterosexual couple. I almost got bamboozled by a jewelery ad, because the first half was nothing but white man and white woman. Then they hit you with the mandatory interracial black man white woman and homosexuals.
This was all just one commercial break. People really sit here and see this shit every 20 minutes and they express no disgust or anything at all. Like damn, I knew it was bad from memery and such but seeing it with your own eyes is horrifying
Local news is often the worst. I'm not sure why. In the 80s and earlier (later for the Midwest) locals had their own unique style and editorial policy. They'd often preempt the national TV with their own funky programming, and they had laid-back rural American culture vibes going on, not just acting like people in "the big city".
Now they all just copy whatever ABC/CBS/NBC/Reuters/AP are saying, and then apply some "<Local City> is the Best City!" propaganda template on top if it. If you visit different cities you see it's exactly the same formula with the names changed. Like that stupid "This city is my city!" song on FM radio. (the TV stations were even using that for a while)
And they all obsess over liberal causes, COVID, fake uniparty politics, sportsball, the national crisis of the day, and basically whatever Globohomo tells people to care about. I was actually surprised when a few stations talked about the contents of Hillary's emails and Pizzagate with some seriousness. (but then eventually moving on to "forget about all that, what about that Russian hacking!")