Big Snake – © John neel
These days, everything seems to be hyped – from TV and movies, to advertising, to sports and politics. Even artistic works are not exempt from the hype machine.
Somewhere along the line, the world seems to have succumbed to the need for exaggeration in everything we do.
Not only is everything sensationalized, but we see and hear it over and over and over again. There are countless ads we’ve all seen countless times. There is an abundance of bigger than life. There is an abundance of ballyhoo, puffery and flatulent hullabaloo.
Hype is used to stretch the truth and warp the reality of our activities, products and events. These days, everything has to be bigger than it really is. Hype amplifies those things that don’t really have much to do with real life. In most cases it is simply a way to give something more attention than it deserves. It robs us of our lives. It numbs our ability to be ourselves. It is a constant bombardment for look at this and look at that, buy this and buy that, and be this and not who you really are. For the most part, it is all about selling us what we don’t really need or being who we’re really not
We tend to sensationalize almost everything to the point of super hero status. A hamburger is made to be the ultimate food. A baseball player is worshipped as a god. The latest cars elude sexuality and power. The simplest product is treated as the end-all – only to be outmoded and out promoted by the next big thing, the latest technology, the newest crave and what’s the hottest in the social landscape.
The truth of most things is that it doesn’t really change our lives that much to have the things that are thrown our way through hyped messages and marketing jingles.
As a society, we’ve lost touch with reality. The real world used to be full of wonder, awe and real beauty. For many of us, that is enough. When we over sensationalize trivial things, the really amazing things in this world become lost and go unnoticed. If we can turn our senses towards what is worthy of our attention we might find that the real world still has plenty of real stuff in the form of actual beauty, wonder and amazement.
© John Neel
This world is amazing. Don’t throw it away because you have become blinded by the exaggerated hype of trivial things.
If your world is not as I see it, it may be because of the way we are conditioned to believe that we must have all that stuff or be like the people in those ads. Life is more than that. It is also none of that. Hype is an invention to make you want what you don’t really need and be something you are not.
Hype is the propaganda that implants power, lust and greed into our minds. It is a deception that that turns our lives into fiction. it makes us want to be like them and to have what they have.
Life is not about having stuff or following those who do.
Photography opens the door for seeing the world as it really exists. It allows us to realize the good as well as the bad. It also gives us a way to enjoy that part of living that many are missing.
That part of living is life itself.
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