Visuals have the power to impact our minds most effectively. That’s why modern-day marketers focus more on video creation rather than writing tons of articles. We all are triggered by visual representations of things; more like loyal imitators. Even though our conscious self wants to avoid negativity, as we encounter them more often than necessary, our minds are influenced by the content and subconsciously, we are falling a victim to this ‘barely-noticed’ social plague.
Most TV shows are based on social events. They represent what we are going through in our daily life. If not entirely, at least 50% of them are inspired by social norms and behaviours. Interestingly, our mind usually doesn’t keep track of the events we are going through unless they create a lasting impression and most of them are either forgotten or unnoticed.
But there are some TV programmes aired in the South Asian region that I have found nothing but a sick mechanism of corrupting mutual relationships between families and friends. Many of you can relate to the shows I am talking about, so, I won’t mention the names. For the rest, who don’t have a clue, you won’t get it if I reveal the names and you watch them on YouTube. This is something only relatable to a different breed of the world population.
A few years back, millions of people, mostly women, were influenced by those TV programmes. They were trending around us and the severity of the impact on many families was so intense that it became national news in our country. Point to be noted, the idea of ‘trending’ establishes once we start to follow them or show tremendous interest towards them. This is what happened to a large portion of the country's people; they were so obsessed with those programmes that they started imitating them in real life.
Those costumes worn by the artists, their fictionalised lifestyle, their social behaviour, and even their fictional conjugal life— we started to follow them so blindly. Some businesses boomed. On the other hand, many families collapsed, years of relationships terminated over trivial matters, and even many committed suicide— all were pointed back to those programmes. It was a moral degradation and the law enforcement bodies had to react.
And why not? When every programme is themed to represent a group of villains inside the family plotting chaos all the time, they can’t bring any good to its viewers.
But things didn’t go smoothly— even the policymakers couldn’t handle it as expected. There are diplomatic issues that many of us aren’t aware of. Those programmes, they used to break the TRP record every now and then. That’s business. That’s money and money talks.
Photo by Jelle de Gier on Unsplash
However, successful or not, the whole nation came to a realisation that they are on the wrong track. All those gossip, news, and talk shows relating to those TV programmes helped the common people to think twice before they mix fiction with reality. It worked, in a sense. Although the programmes still exist, they are not as influential as they were.
Look at the frog. So cute from outside but equally lethal inside. Beware of TV programmes you watch daily, consider them entertaining as long as they are not poisoning the way you live your life.