On the weekends, I like to catch up on my favorite television shows on hulu.com. Prior to composing this journal entry, I watched an old episode of The Middle, a very funny American sitcom television series about a middle-income family of five. However, I watched this show from a different perspective than I normally do. Instead of focusing on the plot or the comical dialogue between the characters, I directed my attention to the advertisements.

During the twenty-two minute episode, there were three “commercial breaks”, each over one hundred seconds long, and each including five advertisements. There were many reoccurring ads for the following companies: Lexus, Toyota, Honda, J. C. Penney, Verizon, and Target. If I tried to pause a commercial by clicking on the screen, another tab opened and the advertisement’s page popped up. Then on that page, there were a plethora of advertisements for other things! This was both annoying and shocking. It was shocking because I realized that we are intentionally steered “through a maze of websites, links, and hyperlinks as a method of exposing” us to advertisements.

Not a long time ago, producers had a vision, rather, a desire to share intellectual, stimulating, interesting shows with viewers. Their sole driving force was an aspiration to inform and entertain. At this time, the role of advertisements was pretty simple: they supported the media and in return they were granted time to advertise their product. Producers only endured advertisements because they needed their support, not because they desired a surplus of money. It was the price producers paid in order to share entertainment and information.

However, nowadays, it seems as though entertainment and media are supporting the advertisements. Producers create mindless television shows that serve no purpose other than to convey advertisements. They worry about attracting more advertisers, but they have very little concern for entertaining us. This is how I see it: Producers have grown extremely greedy and desire great amounts of money. The way they get more money is through advertisers. Therefore, producers create attention-getting, asinine show in order to maintain the attention of both the viewers and the advertisers. These shows are simply conveyer belts of advertisements. Although I am able to analyze this scheme, I still fall victim to it. I admit that I have watched my fair share of Keeping Up with the Kardashians.