My Beef With the History Channel

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My Beef With the History Channel

Post by Red »

The advent of the television marked a major turning point in human history. Being able to transmit video and audio to a screen hundreds of miles away was a sight to behold back in the day, and it has now become commonplace in the modern age. The invention allowed the common man to able to have the great Shakespearean plays already acted out and thusly transmitted to the comfort of their living rooms. As television evolved, so did the programming, creating cultural icons, memorable lines, and cult classics. Television has established itself as one of the most influential inventions of all time, ranking up with the printing press, steam engine, the telephone, the light bulb, and even the tried and true wheel. Often, we take for granted how much it has affected our lives and the people that came before us, as it serves as our great escape from reality and worries, transporting us into the great wonders of visualized imagination.
Despite the television's main use for entertainment purposes, it also has served as a tool of education for all demographics and age groups. There are educational television channels for the majority of subjects, Science channel reports knowledge, advancements, and breakthroughs in the fields of science, National Geographic discusses modern history, scientific advents, and geographic locations, PBS takes up the arts and culture, and the History channel has its place in this menagerie of scholarly avenues as the leading residence of great historical epics unfolding.
Or, at least, it did.
Now, I've gradually stopped watching television over the years, watching mainly only Aqua Teen Hunger Force episodes (whenever they come on demand that is), and educational television. I've enjoyed watching the documentaries on these channels, and ever since I was a boy, the History channel was my favorite. I always considered myself to be a History person, so the channel for me was practically a godsend.
Now, as I'm willing to admit, it wasn't perfect. Various criticisms from the early days of the channel include its extensive coverage of World War 2, and it's bias for showing more American history rather than global history. While it is valid to criticize their broadcasting process, it does make sense from both a financial and historical standpoint. Even people who don't find history very interesting usually find at least something interesting about the WW2 era, and since the channel is an American one, it's easy to appeal to the country's audiences showcasing its most notable events. It had the widest appeal to audiences, and while I personally would've enjoyed seeing more of world history, there wasn't any false advertising. It was at least history, damn it.
Quite recently, the History Channel (how many times have I used both of those words?) has received criticism, not for showcasing too much of one historical moment, rather showcasing, for lack of a better term, nonhistory. W-w-w-wha-wha-what is this shit? "The Curse of Oak Island?" “Mountain Men?” “American Pickers?” This is NOT history! There's a joke where the History Channel is doing to history was MTV is doing to music. As comedic as that statement is, it has a substantial amount of truth to it! Historical documentaries about the rise and fall of the third reich are being replaced with some reality show about some dipshit who owns a pawn shop, just as a slew of music videos are being replaced with reality shows about inept mouthbreathers attempting to live together. In fact, both shows are the highest rated reality programs ever produced. Who woulda thought.
The channel is a fucking misnomer now, with a nonhistorical lineup of shows. Fucking Comedy Central’s ‘Drunk History’ is more historically educational than the history channel’s been in the past 8 fucking years! In fact, I think there was a mistake when it came to programming. The comedy of errors known as 'Ancient Aliens' was likely supposed to be slated to air on Comedy Central, and Drunk History was supposed to be on the History Channel, but apparently, they put a Scientologist in charge of the programming, and mistakes were made. Well, whatever the hell happened clearly has been a great benefit for the History Channel, as viewership has increased substabtially ever since they added these brain cell massacring shows, so they just said 'Fuck it!'
Who's the greek mother fucker who appears on that show anyways? That guy's a douchebag.
What happened to integrity? What happened to intelligence? What happened to education? I'll tell ya what; The vulgarians who run the channel actually have the POMPOSITY to say to us "Fuck integrity, fuck intelligence, fuck education, FUCK YOU, but most of all, FUCK HISTORY." That's all it fucking is.
You know what? I have a plan that'll satisfy everybody. How about you take all these shows, if you can even call them that, coup them up, and throw them on a new channel, called the pseudohistory channel. Sure, most will still have nothing to do with history, still making it a misnomer, but at least it's in a place that doesn't interfere with actual history, allowing engaged indidivuals who have genuine interest in the subject be educated about the various events that have created the world we live in today.
Ugh, who the fuck am I kidding? We all know Disney, wh owns half of the channel, is willing to sacrafice integrity for the sake of financial gain, even if it does mean denying the public with programs that teach us about the true nature of humanity.
Now, probably the best solution would be to make the the channel (and all other educational programming) publically funded, but given our shit public education budget, along with the channel securing itself as a private company, that's probably never gonna happen.
I guess if we want quality historical education on TV, we can watch Military History (and wars have changed the world a lot, so that's like 90% of history), Natioanal Geographic, and Drunk History. And there's always the History Channel website, which does History some serious fucking justice.
But, please, can we have History back on the History channel?
Learning never exhausts the mind.
-Leonardo da Vinci
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Re: My Beef With the History Channel

Post by Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz »

I have seen a couple of episodes of "Ancient Aliens". The one I remember most was where Ancient Astronaut theorists give their thoughts on how the brilliant scientist Nikola Tesla may have been communicating with Aliens.

I was skeptical at the time of such claims due to the fact that they were mainly pointing out things that could have easily been explained without such grand explanations (Occam's razor). Tesla was very mad. He was a genius, but very very mad. He was in love with a pigeon towards the end of his life. He even thought that the pigeon loved him back.

The Ancient Astronaut theorists believe that a lot of the mad visions Tesla was having was actually the Aliens trying to communicate with him. I think that this can actually be easily explained by the fact that Tesla was mad.

By the way, when I say "mad", I mean "crazy", not "angry". For some reason, yanks believe that "mad" means "angry", when this is not the case!

Apparently, the "Ancient Aliens" series has an episode on how the Nazis collaborated with Aliens to develop their technology. I haven't seen the episode yet, but I can already tell that no matter what they claim, there will be nothing in there to compare to the amount of balderdash spewed by professional historical revisionist Dinesh D'Souza about the Nazis.

Nevertheless, I do still believe that Aliens are real. I even made a topic about this a while back: http://philosophicalvegan.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=2375&p=24945

I actually am glad that I have an opportunity to bring this up, as I wish to rebut some of the claims I made about the "Alien peoples":
I wrote: Wed Aug 24, 2016 3:59 pm There are even films about aliens (Star Wars, Star Trek, ET, Alien, Doctor Who, etc.) and an entire religion called Scientology which asserts that the Alien peoples will a God and his name is Xenu. However, in my opinion, this is a bullshit because for if the alien peoples are a god, then clearly they are more powerful than humans, which is not true because for in most of the films that I mentioned, a human will kill an alien, just like in many other films, which shows a human is more powerful than the alien peoples, and I am sorry to say this, but this kind of puts a dent in the whole Scientology thing.
Scientology does actually not see Xenu the Alien as a god, but as a nasty piece of work whose hobbies include killing people to death with hydrogen bombs. At least he has cool spaceships though! Exactly like DC-8 aircraft but without the "fans"! Scientologists do not believe in any gods, not that it matters anyway as the religion is utter hogwash (A good documentary about the madness of Scientology here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2E0JGKa6w-o&t=1s). And I do not even know why I thought my point about humans killing Aliens in movies was meant to prove that an Alien couldn't be a god. These films are fictional and made by humans! Of course they will show humans as superior to Aliens! That doesn't prove anything!

This idea about Scientology came from a YouTube channel called "Channelthegijoeshow", which (although I did not realize it at the time) was meant to be satirical. He even referred to Scientology as "Atheism". I am sorry to say that this is not the only time I was influenced by this channel.

From the thread "Is eating eggs ethical?":
I wrote: Fri Jun 17, 2016 12:19 pm No!
In this video a very intelligent man explains how eating eggs is wrong and not vegetarian/vegan:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jq57c80Qh7M
A very intelligent man indeed. With videos such as "Will a earth round or will he flat", in which he claims that the earth can't possibly round as if it was we would all be falling off of the bottom of it!
brimstoneSalad wrote: Fri Jun 17, 2016 3:21 pm Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz is trolling.

You know that man is crazy.
I wrote: Sat Jun 18, 2016 6:01 am We are all crazy.
Whenever I start to wonder why people think I am trolling, I must take a look at these ridiculous posts that I made. I could blame the language barrier for this but that would just be plain dishonest. The only person I can blame is myself!

I realize that this response was meant to be about "Ancient Aliens" but I have sort of gone off track and turned it into a rant about how much I hate myself from the past.

Well, the History Channel. What can be said about it other than: It is a peculiar channel with questionable content. Some of it is history but some of it is not. Nevertheless, its distortion of history pales in comparison to the likes of Dinesh D'Souza and M. S. King who make the History Channel look like amateurs in comparison.
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Re: My Beef With the History Channel

Post by brimstoneSalad »

And music back on MTV? :-D

I don't think it's going to happen, it's unfortunate. TV by it's nature tends to the sensational.

I'm glad to see you've come so far Zzzz. If we aren't at least a little embarrassed by our pasts that probably means we haven't done much self improvement, which means we should be embarrassed by our present too.
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Re: My Beef With the History Channel

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RedAppleGP wrote:The comedy of errors known as 'Ancient Aliens' was likely supposed to be slated to air on Comedy Central, and Drunk History was supposed to be on the History Channel, but apparently, they put a Scientologist in charge of the programming, and mistakes were made.
Hahahaha. Yup.

I have barely watched the history channel, but based on this, it's unfortunate that educational content is being replaced with entertainment... especially with something so important like history, which I think people should know about.

Wow, I can't believe Disney owns the history channel (owns part of its parent company). Well, actually I can believe that, since Disney is huge... That explains the situation I guess... I guess we'll become even less educated as a society. Wonderful.
"I am not a Marxist." -Karl Marx
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Re: My Beef With the History Channel

Post by Red »

That was the most intelligent and honest post I've ever seen you made, Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
brimstoneSalad wrote:I don't think it's going to happen, it's unfortunate. TV by its nature tends to the sensational.
That's why I propose public funding for education (I personally believe all education should be publically funded so it can be free for everyone, but anyway), so there's no financial benefit if they sacrifice education.

I remember the government defunding NPR about 7 years ago (apparently to 'cut from the deficit'), leaving the company to do what they please, so I guess the government isn't for educational media.
brimstoneSalad wrote:I'm glad to see you've come so far Zzzz. If we aren't at least a little embarrassed by our pasts that probably means we haven't done much self improvement, which means we should be embarrassed by our present too.
Ah yes, it is wise to be in a constant state of inadequacy with yourself if you want to actually be someone. Hey man, blessing in disguise.
EquALLity wrote:I have barely watched the history channel, but based on this, it's unfortunate that educational content is being replaced with entertainment... especially with something so important like history, which I think people should know about.

Wow, I can't believe Disney owns the history channel (owns part of its parent company). Well, actually I can believe that, since Disney is huge... That explains the situation I guess... I guess we'll become even less educated as a society. Wonderful.
I have a conspiracy theory, but maybe the government is denying us education so the general public wouldn't be intelligent enough for the economy and consumerism and such.
Learning never exhausts the mind.
-Leonardo da Vinci
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Re: My Beef With the History Channel

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Red wrote: Sat Dec 23, 2017 10:40 pm That was the most intelligent and honest post I've ever seen you made, Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
I'm not sure whether to be happy or unhappy because of this. Is this because I was being intelligent and honest in that post, which is unusual for me? Is this because I am usually intelligent and honest, but in that post I was even more intelligent and honest? Is this because I was not being very intelligent or honest in that post at all, but in comparison to how unintelligent and dishonest I am in my other posts, it is an improvement?
Red wrote: Sat Dec 23, 2017 10:40 pm
brimstoneSalad wrote:I'm glad to see you've come so far Zzzz. If we aren't at least a little embarrassed by our pasts that probably means we haven't done much self improvement, which means we should be embarrassed by our present too.
Ah yes, it is wise to be in a constant state of inadequacy with yourself if you want to actually be someone. Hey man, blessing in disguise.
I don't know if that is a joke but I agree with you to an extent.
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Re: My Beef With the History Channel

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Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz wrote: Sun Dec 24, 2017 11:28 am
Red wrote: Sat Dec 23, 2017 10:40 pm That was the most intelligent and honest post I've ever seen you made, Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
I'm not sure whether to be happy or unhappy because of this. Is this because I was being intelligent and honest in that post, which is unusual for me? Is this because I am usually intelligent and honest, but in that post, I was even more intelligent and honest? Is this because I was not being very intelligent or honest in that post at all, but in comparison to how unintelligent and dishonest I am in my other posts, it is an improvement?
I remember the first time we met. You were a simple Broadway actor afraid to get in my limo because you thought I wanted you to perform oral sex on me.

Do you remember that?
Learning never exhausts the mind.
-Leonardo da Vinci
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Re: My Beef With the History Channel

Post by Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz »

Red wrote: Mon Dec 25, 2017 10:59 am
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz wrote: Sun Dec 24, 2017 11:28 am
Red wrote: Sat Dec 23, 2017 10:40 pm That was the most intelligent and honest post I've ever seen you made, Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
I'm not sure whether to be happy or unhappy because of this. Is this because I was being intelligent and honest in that post, which is unusual for me? Is this because I am usually intelligent and honest, but in that post, I was even more intelligent and honest? Is this because I was not being very intelligent or honest in that post at all, but in comparison to how unintelligent and dishonest I am in my other posts, it is an improvement?
I remember the first time we met. You were a simple Broadway actor afraid to get in my limo because you thought I wanted you to perform oral sex on me.

Do you remember that?
I have never seen the film "Team America: World Police" and I don't think I ever will.
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Re: My Beef With the History Channel

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Then how did you know that I stole that from Team America?
Learning never exhausts the mind.
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Re: My Beef With the History Channel

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