When our media becomes our thoughts becomes our reality
Where did all the feel-good human interest stories go?
In the golden age of colorful magazines and chirpy local news, feel-good human interest stories were everywhere. A teenager saved a bunch of animals that were lost in the woods. A middle-aged couple adopted ten kids that needed a new home. A small business hired formerly incarcerated people to get them back on their feet. There was an abundance of heartwarming stories that made us feel better about our neighbors and strangers, and quietly encouraged us to be more charitable and kind.
We consumed these stories for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and because of it, we were probably more inclined to see the best in people. We were probably more inclined to see people as pure. But people haven’t stopped being well-intended or pure. Surely, people are still committing acts of kindness all around the world—in small towns and big cities, silently and privately, without recognition or circulation. But if big media, little media, or social media doesn’t report on these stories, how will we know?
Today, so much of what we read and watch is crazy, wild, or scary because those types of real and fictionalized stories get clicks and eyeballs. There is virality potential and there is schadenfreude, but when most of what we see and watch is bleak, our thoughts and our reality can become bleak. We might even assume the worst in people. We might even assume things are worse than they actually are.
The only way out is through—past the media muck, through the long and windy roads of shared narratives, and back to The Real World, where most people are good, there are small miracles everywhere, and the present and future are bright.