It’s crazy to me that online, it seems there is more concern over trivial matters such as “What’s happening with the Spider-Man movies?!” or “What did [insert celebrity] say?!” while clearly more important things are in the news, like the Amazon Rainforest being on fire right now, which most reports came out just today, three weeks after it started. Now I know this observation isn’t exactly a new take, but still, I ponder what that says about society today and where it’s headed.
Could it be people don’t know about it? If so, is that the media’s fault? Maybe, but I wouldn’t blame them entirely; after all, they are simply catering to their audience, and if they feel that their audience, which is pretty much everyone, doesn’t care enough to see increased clicks for stories covering the event, then they can hardly be blamed for making the practical business decision.
Perhaps people in general don’t care, and consider the consequences of the event minor to them. If that’s the case, then clearly these folk are too caught up in the “now” and care little about the future, especially for future generations. Even I, who have no children at the moment, would consider leaving a sustainable planet the utmost important thing each and every generation should aspire to. After all, if humanity dies out within the next few centuries, then what really was the point of it all?
A common gripe I hear from my peers is how previous generations have screwed things up for my generation; staggering student debt, skyrocketing rent, a stagnant job market, etc. While I agree with most of these sentiments, I can already see now that my generation is making a similar mistake, where all of the previous issues listed may have stemmed from a lack of foresight.
The way I see it, my attention, my “views” is how I vote on what I deem important in the media’s eyes. So, I opt to abstain from rewarding reporting on trivial matters over important matters in times such as this. I vote with my clicks; its free, and all I have to do is not open articles on unimportant click-bait. Instead, even though I lack any funds or power to significantly contribute towards helping important causes such as stopping the rainforest fires, I still try to read at least one article from a reliable source so that I can at least know about the tragic event, and speak to the basics of it.
And that’s it. That’s what I see as a way to at least, in a very minor way, state to the media that “I care about this subject, and I do want to know more about it”. I know, seems kind of pompous doesn’t it? It’s such a meager step that, at best, its a tiny nudge. But if more people did it, perhaps I would have heard about this wildfire earlier than the three weeks its apparently been happening, and who knows, maybe with more time something more could have been done about it.
Instead, I found out about a new chicken sandwich the day it came out. It’s a good sandwich, but I’d rather have waited three weeks to know about it than hear about this rainforest fire today. We all should have.
Image source: Time Magazine