Thinking for Myself
By Tom Ehrich
I was checking Facebook and came across a sequence from the London Olympics opening ceremony that NBC had refused to show. I watched it anyway, was deeply moved, and couldn’t fathom why NBC thought I shouldn’t see it.
Suddenly, I had had enough of other people presuming to think for me.
I am tired of having my generation’s every twitch turned into product and advertising, as well as articles relating what others like me are doing and what I ought to be thinking and feeling about it.
I am tired of having Google and Facebook turn my Internet use into data and then into ad displays. In fact, I am tired of advertising altogether.
I am tired of politicians who tell me what America is about and then present a vision that is small and ugly. I am tired of Fox News for catering to the right wing, and of NBC for turning the London Olympics into saccharine money-grubbing narrated by the clueless.
So here’s my plan. I am going to ignore all summing-up-a-generation articles, especially sneaky ones that use nostalgia to sell products or politics.
I am going to wean myself from Google and treat Facebook warily. I am going to avoid every ad they send me.
I am taping the Olympics and fast-forwarding through ads and Bob Costas.
And if NBC tells me I can’t watch an extraordinary sequence centered in hope and faith and a stunning rendition of “Abide with Me,” I will find a way to watch it anyway. NBC won’t decide whether God abides with me.
Here’s the tribute to terrorism victims in the opening ceremonies that NBC thought inappropriate. Decide for yourself. http://deadspin.com/5929778/heres-the-opening-ceremony-tribute-to-terrorism-victims-nbc-doesnt-want-you-to-see