What happened to the Discovery Channel?

This...

So for this week I watched a 'prime time' show and why not watch one from my favorite childhood station, the Discovery Channel. Unfortunately this is what i found in their 8 o'clock slot on a Friday. Gold Rush is a reality TV show based in Alaska(discovery channel and the history channel have a serious hard on for Alaska at the moment(its tougher in Alaska, ice road truckers, the fishing/crabbing show, and now a new airplane ice road truckers)) that centers around 7 or 8 miners who purchased a claim up in Alaska with the intent to mine gold. So its not like Ive been watching the whole series but this is what i managed to pick up from this one episode. After 3 months of 'mining' they have yielded zero gold out of this location and burned up the $250,000 they had to initially invest in this place. One thing is very clear, not one of these people has ever mined for gold or has any expertise with this equipment. Hell they don't even have a clue how to work half the stuff. But that makes it fun, cause seeing people fail at stuff makes me feel better about myself!

This show features entirely blue collar types, most of these guys could walk on to the set of Ax Men and we would never notice. This seems to be part of an undeniable trend (see above Alaska shows) toward putting working class people on TV as opposed to dressed up, white collar, news caster types. I think that this is an attempt to appeal to the lower/lower middle class and come off as being a down to earth channel, cause you know it is discovery channel after all. In this one episode the one person who is an indoorsy type (they said he used to be a real estate agent) attempts to learn how to use a complex piece of mining equipment by "reading books and studying", and of course he fails, which is no surprise to all the other more rough cut mountain men.

Well I kind of already talked about it above, but that one incident I believe was very telling about who the show is trying to appeal to. Working class people who's jobs are based on experience and a will to do it, rather than training and book smarts. The real estate agent (Dorsey) seems out of place and the other guys are always trying to figure out something that he can actually do. I saw this as perpetuating the stereo type that people from the city 'cant cut it out here' (one of the men actually says "he just cant cut it out here" i wonder if that line was fed to him....) in the 'real' world. This show reminds me of the WWII era USA, when we built stuff and were a working class nation, it seems to be doing its very best glen beck impersonation when it comes to bringing back the glory days, and then just being crazy.

My major beef with this show is that its a completely obvious why these guys are out here, its not because they actually want to mine, its cause they are on TV. I mean what sane person would invest $250,000 into something that they have no idea how to run or operate. It almost seems like that was the Discovery Channel budget for the show so that's all that they were willing to take out of their money pile, and hey if it doesn't work out the network would have our financial back. These guys all talk about gold mining like they just read it out of a magazine, they all know how stuff is 'supposed' to work, but none of them actually know how to do shit. The drama just seems sooooo manufactured too, almost as if the people on set could hear the overly ominous narrator.

This was the first time Ive ever watched this show, and if I can help it, it will be the last. There is no way that I would ever recommend this to another person who is looking for entertainment. This is such a far cry from the show that I remember being in this same time slot when I was a kid (90s), Wild Discovery, which was nothing more than a documentary series on wild life and stuff. When my mom told me to turn the TV off I would always retort with, "but mom! don't you want me to learn!" Now I don't think any kid could dupe their parents with that one, this stuff inst even close to educational.

This is just sad, as I used to really like the steady stream of documentaries that you got from the history channel and the discovery channel, but now their line ups are littered with stupid reality shows based in Alaska, or worse. They still do documentaries, Planet Earth was awesome, but that used to be an everyday thing for them. Now they are likely to break their arm patting themselves on the back for a documentary like that. The unfortunate reality of the situation is that reality shows are killing quality TV.

Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of Americans....

Unfortunately this is the slogan that would best define my advertising campaign, if i had one. Its just so true. Here is a good example of how we can be confused by statistics in adds and duped into buying a product that will make our lives "more safe".

This is a Sylvania Silverstar Ultra Headlight commercial. The add is a TV commercial with a run time of about 30 seconds, and its pure class. The background music starts out as crowd noise, to get you in that rowdy "red blooded all American" mood, and then fades into a nice country song to set the caring tone for the rest of the ad. Like I said its pure class, here this is what I'm talking about.



The ad starts out with the "plain-folk" approach, perhaps lulling you into a false sense of security. Then it rattles off some stats about how their head lights are like "50% brighter" and "40% farther" which is good, cause you know you want your head lights to light up stuff. Then it drops the bomb. It prefaces the big bang with this cozy statement, "Why would any fun loving, red blooded, all American male give up watching football to upgrade his head lights?" Then some stats, never mind that they don't bother to mention what they are comparing them to, maybe your burnt out ones. But those aren't the real reasons its because "its easier to replace a couple of head lights then it is...... a daughter" BOOOOOOM!!! You now have to buy these headlights cause if you don't your ditsy daughter wont see shit and will crash and die!!! And there you have it, the "hidden-fear" approach, and we all thought this was just an innocent headlight commercial. I just love how this ad is trying to appeal to "all Americans" and convincing them to act upon their newly developed fear of the dark. I'm personally not a big fan of this type of fear inducing ad, using fear to control people is terrorism in my book. But we can call it fearism for disassociation purposes. It feels that since the whole 9/11 deal its gotten a lot worse.{(EDIT):I just watched all the ads on this site: http://www.livingroomcandidate.org/commercials/1956, and this has been going on a long time, but the 92,96,00(forgive me i was 4,8,12 at the time...) elections focused on a lot of domestic stuff so it didn't have that war time feel like the 04 election did.} I'm pretty sure the greatest president we ever had once said, "The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself" Word.

In spite of how stupid I think this ad is, I do believe this add is very effective, for its target audience.(see title) The first time I saw it I couldn't contain my laughter, its just too easy to appeal to paternal fears in order to sell a product. We have all seen adds like this with a similar message, if you don't get this product your safety(or your child's in this case) is in danger! BUY IT NOW SO YOU CAN FEEL SAFE!!!!!

So what can we all learn from this advertisement? Well I can tell you what I learned, nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of Americans. Ohh and if you gonna get some new headlights better make em silver stars, they are 50% brighter.

Hookers arnt all skanky

Wait, yes they are.

Are you a hooker?

So im sure all my followers are guessing now, is scott a runaway hooker? Well the answer is no, im not, the title was just to catchy to pass up. Im pretty sure that mtv just contacted me and wants to do a spin off show, 16 and hooking. Even though im not a whore, I can still post funny/entertaining stuff like this classic right here.



I first saw that when I was in high school, and to this day, I've never heard another human make a sound anywhere close to that.

Runaway Hooker in the making....

If you have ever sent a message like this to a person that you have never met, you may be a runaway hooker in the making. I just logged into my myspace account for the first time since 2008 and lookie what I found...

I'm Susan :))
I really feel shy, but I have to tell you, Scott Alan Smith, that you are just a man of my dreams... I found your profile by accident but now I'm sure it's a destiny! ))
Frankly speaking... I want to find a man who will help me to realise alpl my fantasies, oh, feel really SO timid to write it... !!! but I mean my $exy fantasies.. ;-))))
your photos are marvellous... but I'm sure in your real life you will excite me even more! ))
that's incredible... but I'm from Corvallis, Oregon United States too! :-))
So... I would like to keep up a friendship with you, Scott Alan Smith!
You can find my spicy photos at my profile!
Scott Alan Smith, I nhope you'll take a look at them and will write me smth to start our challenge :))))
ki$$ you tenderly ;)))

it was probably a man anyways...a big hairy scary man or an asian person who doesnt speak english that well

How to tell if its a real Runaway Hooker

Here is a good educational video that everybody should watch before traveling to the big city.

Learn How to determine if she's a hooker or a cop. For more Dating Advice How-To Videos & Articles, visit WonderHowTo.

See HBO thinks we have an audience

According to a university double blind study, hookers are interesting. That is why HBO made this awesome show about me!