4 ms·

When I was a kid in the 90s, my grandparents never wanted to get cable television, despite watching a lot of local broadcasts. Their children (and grandchildren

When I was a kid in the 90s, my grandparents never wanted to get cable television, despite watching a lot of local broadcasts. Their children (and grandchildren) thought they would truly enjoy it: more live sports, history documentaries, and so on. They thought it would be low quality trash. As a birthday gift, my mother tried to give them a lifetime cable subscription so they could see what they were missing. When the technician from the cable company showed up at their door, my grandmother stared at him through a slit in the blinds and refused to let him in or otherwise acknowledge him. I pitied them, and we joked behind their backs about how stuck in their ways they were. (Writing this as an adult, I can't imagine why my mom would insist on trying to give them a gift that they had overtly rejected.) Years later, my grandparents gave in to cable. We were right: they did enjoy watching more Big 12 football. But they also enjoyed watching endless hours of Fox News. They became increasingly isolated, paranoid, and overtly racist. I won't blame 100% of this change on Fox News, but their transition toward hate absolutely poisoned their relationships with most of the family. I don't think that's exactly what my grandmother expected when she refused the cable man on her birthday, but she was still right.

hagbard_c 28d ago
So your grandparents were caught in the 'Fox News' bubble and as a result of that you state they became 'isolated, paranoid, overtly racist and [hateful]'. Sounds dire... Have you considered that it may be just as true that you are caught in another bubble - say the 'CNN-MSNBC/MSNOW-ABC-CBS-NYT-WaPo' bubble or something similarly bent and twisted? That as a result from that you have become in the eyes of those outside that bubble 'naive, gullible, overtly anti-western, suicidally empathic and disdainful of those with a different view', especially given that your grandparents are from a different generation which uses different words (and words differently) and has a different frame of reference? That to me seems more likely than that your grandparents have been turned to the dark side by watching cable television.
- actionfromafar 28d ago
  Which one is it? Bubbles are dangerous but not the Fox bubble?
  - hagbard_c 27d ago
    I don't see how you get this from what I wrote. The grandparent poster only mentioned the 'Fox bubble', I made clear that this is not the only one and that it is likely he was caught in one of the other ones. I neither stated nor implied that it was the only 'non-dangerous' one, that is something out of your own imagination.
    - actionfromafar 27d ago
      I can see now that my reading was uncharitable. Though I disagree with the last sentence of "not likely". Grandparents becoming FOX zombies is not a rare thing.

hagbard_c 28d ago

So your grandparents were caught in the 'Fox News' bubble and as a result of that you state they became 'isolated, paranoid, overtly racist and [hateful]'. Sounds dire... Have you considered that it may be just as true that you are caught in another bubble - say the 'CNN-MSNBC/MSNOW-ABC-CBS-NYT-WaPo' bubble or something similarly bent and twisted? That as a result from that you have become in the eyes of those outside that bubble 'naive, gullible, overtly anti-western, suicidally empathic and disdainful of those with a different view', especially given that your grandparents are from a different generation which uses different words (and words differently) and has a different frame of reference? That to me seems more likely than that your grandparents have been turned to the dark side by watching cable television.

actionfromafar 28d ago
Which one is it? Bubbles are dangerous but not the Fox bubble?
- hagbard_c 27d ago
  I don't see how you get this from what I wrote. The grandparent poster only mentioned the 'Fox bubble', I made clear that this is not the only one and that it is likely he was caught in one of the other ones. I neither stated nor implied that it was the only 'non-dangerous' one, that is something out of your own imagination.
  - actionfromafar 27d ago
    I can see now that my reading was uncharitable. Though I disagree with the last sentence of "not likely". Grandparents becoming FOX zombies is not a rare thing.