Catching up with the times

So Ok…I’ve got another post based on an article from IMDB. Give it a read and then keep reading here.

Chinese TV Official Sentenced in Payola Scandal

For those who don’t know, or couldn’t tell from the article, payola is when a DJ or producer or whatever, accepts a bribe to put a song or show on the air. This went on in North America in the 1950’s during the emergence of rock ‘n roll. It wasn’t uncommon for DJ’s to receive a record with some cash slipped in the sleeve. Back then DJ’s were the ones who decided who got put on the air and a little cash incentive got your record played a lot faster than others. Today, now with playlists that practice is supposed to have stopped, however I think it’s still going on. How do you explain most of the crap you hear on the radio these days?

Another event going on during the 1950’s was China’s “Great Leap Forward”. This was China’s attempt to modernize and catch up with the rest of the modern world. The campaign began in 1958 and when until 1960. In the end the campaign was considered a failure and in 1981 the Communist Party admitted that they were impatient for quick results.

Now that the history lesson is over and everyone is caught up, here’s where everything connects and some sort of quasi-rant/opinion begins:

I find it funny how even though China has caught up to the modern world by now, this is their first incident of payola. One might think that maybe it’s because they learnt from everyone else’s mistakes because there was never an occurrence of it over there. But no…not really…was just a matter of time I guess. I guess that great leap finally landed in the mid 50’s. Really wasn’t a leap in this case though. It was more of a hop really. A little more than a skip, but not quite a jump; definitely not a leap. Although it might only be a little hop, I guess it really isn’t anything to be proud of. I suppose it’s best that it’s only a hop. Imagine if it was a leap. Where would they be then? The whole station probably would have gone bankrupt, or maybe programming would have gotten out of hand and all there was to watch was someone saying the world “whatsadoodle” 24 hours a day, or maybe even a meteor would have crashed into it. I think it’s definitely a good thing that it was only a hop ‘cause whatsadoodle is an annoying fucking word.

Youngblood