The Paranormal Style in American Politics

I often have insomnia, and, because I love conspiracy theories even though I don’t believe in them, I used to occasionally listen to the radio show Coast to Coast AM. I always especially enjoyed their Halloween episode, when the show would be retitled Ghost to Ghost AM.  I remember they talked about “Shadow People” on one such episode that was cool.  Everything on the show was so utter madness of course, but I wonder if most of the callers were playing pranks.  (The time “Gordon Freeman” called in being a prime example.)

I bring this up because of eurobrat’s post saying Coast to Coast has now become more of a typical Republican radio talk show.  That’s too bad; although I can’t say that it’s surprising.  “Paranoid style in American Politics” and all that. I wonder if it was just the host who happened to be on that night.  Even then, it’s an odd marketing strategy: “let’s try to be like all the other stuff out there.”

It’s actually a surprisingly common device you’ll see in all forms of marketing.  It’s not a good idea.  Generally, the best way to market your product, whatever it may be, is to differentiate it, not imitate what everybody else is doing.

 

5 Comments

  1. Oh yes, the shadow people! Thanks for the reminder, I loved getting spooked out by them too 🙂 And yeah, maybe it was just that one host? I certainly hope so, because I agree with you that original programming has a lot more potential than the cookie cutter stuff.

    1. I remember another bit about “psychic vampires”–that is, people who just suck the energy out of a group. Now, to me these are called “boring” people, but the caller and host both felt it was a much more mystical phenomenon. That sort of thing made for a very entertaining broadcast.

      1. Yeah, I remember that one too! I agree that there’s nothing supernatural going on there. To me, the psychic vampires are the self-centered attention whores in a given social setting.

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