what we really want to know

Been reading the articles on James Frey and "JTLeroy" and how shocked people are that they'd been fooled. Hell, Oprah got fooled, and you know Oprah don't like being anyone's fool.

But what about the publishing houses that let these books through and allowed the authors continue with their hoaxes looking the other way while the cash came rolling in. As for Frey's book, published as a memoir, didn't Doubleday "fact check"? It's not like the publishers are offering "refunds" for the books. They just shrug their shoulders and acted as shocked as everyone else about how they didn't know and how they'd been hoodwinked with everyone else. Please!

And then here's the public who bought into all their stories, watched as they hung out with celebs, as if celebs make a person seem more authentic and honest (unless that celeb is Oprah, oh oops there goes her cred). And something in the millions of people who bought these books, wanted to believe that what they were reading was true. They wanted to read just how jacked up the world can treat a person, they wanted to read about a real person's evil heart. Why?

Is it no different from "reality" shows that have credits for "writers"? After watching how reality shows film, they're really not that "real" as they are more "staged".

I don't know. I think the readership has a hand in being fooled. They wanted to be witness to the spectacle of this person's really messed up life. And the readership is aghast because they've been lied to and that they are hurt because they believed it all. But part of them let themselves believed, trusted the writers and the publishers to tell them the "truth" as if they were obligated in some way for it. But what exactly did they want to believe in? Was there any triumphant spirit? Was there any redemption? Or did they just want to believe that dang, his life is way more messed up than my life has ever been, I should appreciate my life more?

But maybe that's it, we carry way more sympathy with total strangers who are touched by celebrity than we are with the person next door. We would rather care about the lives of people so far removed from our own worlds, than to care about the people we know. Because it's much easier to care for pseudo-celebrities than to care about the millions of anonymous people who live in or perhaps are born into and probably die in rather horrific conditions. But we don't want to know about those people. We'll pay money to the people who say are friends with Madonna or Linsay Lohan, well because if they know them, then it must be true.

And in writing this post, I wonder where are sense of "reailty" has gone. But maybe in this day and age where people are born cynical, where every other day there's some story about some corporation or government official getting questioned for not telling people the whole truth, are we starving and hoping someone will give us something "real". Are we so tired of being cynical all the time that we just want to believe anything, any little thing? We'd rather be naive and believe everything than be cynical and believe nothing.

Either way, we're asking to get played. Either way we don't really care. We don't care enough to believe, we don't care enough to question. If you don't believe in anything anyone says, why bother asking. If you don't question anything that you believe, then there's really nothing you believe in, everything is true even when it contradicts itself.

There are "real" things in this world. It's just a shame that more often than not, we'd rather not deal with it because the pseudo "reality" is all nicely edited for our consumption.