Room 101

            Firstly, one of the most annoying ideas for me is the idea of complaining about the content of television and radio broadcasts. What can be so inappropriate that a multitude of people write in to moan about it? I have never seen or heard anything through these mediums that justifies spending a large quota of time drafting a letter of complaint to the broadcaster about how “appalling” and “outrageous” this content was and how “mystifying” it is that the program was actually aired. These people must sit in front of the TV watching; waiting for something that could be misconstrued as offensive, which they will then write in and complain about. Why bother? These programs are there for our enjoyment, not as an outlet for nitpicking amongst people who are simply seeking to ruin things for the 90% of people who found nothing wrong with what was shown. The notion of complaining becomes even more ridiculous when you consider what happened to the program between it being created and it being shown. Senior members of the broadcasting company, who have been in the profession for many years, will have viewed the material and decided that it fits in with the rigorous guidelines that have been set out for television and radio programming. If these people can see that there is nothing wrong with it, then why correct them? At the end of the day, they have a lot more experience in the field, so their view counts for a whole lot more.

This country’s growing celebrity culture is another concept that causes me annoyance. More and more, ordinary people are seeing celebrities as the model way to live your life and are becoming insecure about how their life is very different to how their idols live. These people then become depressed as they believe that their tiny imperfections distance themselves from the “perfect” celebrities that adorn their television sets and magazine front pages. Obsession with becoming like these “heroes” means that plastic surgery is now often carried out for purely cosmetic reasons. Plastic surgery is an immensely useful technology that should be utilised as a treatment for accidental disfigurement, not as a way to eke cash out of people who want “shiny teeth like that bird off the telly”. People who follow these celebrities and worship the ground they walk on need to realise that these people are no different from us, aside from the fact that their chosen professions carry more monetary value than ours. We could all look as good as them if we had access to every beauty treatment under the sun, money no object. Stay as you are; don’t waste money in a feeble attempt to look perfect.