# Dammit, History Channel, will you please just stop? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 10, 2014, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dammit-history-channel-will-you-please-just-stop/680980 "2014-02-10T16:28:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2014, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dammit-history-channel-will-you-please-just-stop/680980/41 "2014-02-11T03:50:30Z")
> [@Equipoise](#): > > Crop circles are beautiful things and top my list of Temporary Art I love that fascinate me (sand sculptures, butter art, ice sculptures, Good graffiti, sidewalk art, and dozens of other things). Saying aliens were responsible is not only stupid, it takes the credit away from the innovative, interesting humans who made them. The pranksters that made most of the circles were consciously trying to get people to think they were made by aliens, so I’m not sure they have a lot of room to complain that some people are giving aliens all the credit. Agree they’re pretty cool just taken as (terrestrial) art, though. > [@biggirl](#): > > Somewhere around here in Cafe Society, I’ve got a rant about the stupidity of America Unearthed and the racism of Ancient Aliens. Yeah, I said “racism”. Ever notice how the Egyptians and the Incas were just too dumb to build big things without outside help but the Romans and Greeks figured out concrete and stadiums all by themselves. Looking at the episode guide for Ancient Aliens, it looks like they’ve attributed plenty of European monuments to aliens as well (Stonehenge, the Carnac stones, etc.) I suspect the Classical world gets a pass simply because the thoroughness of the written record regarding most of its more impressive structures. (Though if they have to come up with material for another few seasons, I’d be pretty surprised if they didn’t go there anyways, Herodotus be damned!!) ---
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2014, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dammit-history-channel-will-you-please-just-stop/680980/42 "2014-02-11T03:58:34Z")
At least it’s entertaining. Imagine history channel run like Zoe tv that shows nothing but creationist science. ---
**Author:** ![LawMonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d6d6ee/32.png) [@LawMonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LawMonkey)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2014, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dammit-history-channel-will-you-please-just-stop/680980/43 "2014-02-11T04:11:20Z")
> [@Biggirl](#): > > I like Oddities. The New York one. I cannot stand any of the staff in the California one. Poseurs, the whole lot of them. Different channel (Science, not History), but… I used to live a couple blocks from the original New York Obscura shop (and then a few more blocks from their new location on Ave A). The shop is as you see it on the show, and so are Evan and Mike. Actually bought a deer skull from Evan–she’s quite nice and pleasant to chat with. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2014, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dammit-history-channel-will-you-please-just-stop/680980/44 "2014-02-11T14:08:36Z")
I once made the mistake of leaving one of those shows on in the background and I got so angry hearing it. The specific case was a UFO story including an alien corpse found in the 1800’s. The host said that this occured a few years before airships were invented so it was OBVIOUSLY an alien. Yes, that’s right. It’s \*way more likely \*that this was an extraterrestrial than just a guy ahead of the game on the dirigible front. I was glad that I was bald because otherwise, I would have pulled my hair out. ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2014, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dammit-history-channel-will-you-please-just-stop/680980/45 "2014-02-11T14:27:16Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > My understanding is that the Turtles are now aliens instead of mutants. So we’re good. I’m agnostic as to if the turtles are aliens or mutants - they could be both - and teenaged ones at that. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2014, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dammit-history-channel-will-you-please-just-stop/680980/46 "2014-02-11T14:55:43Z")
> [@PoorYorick](#): > > Yeah, it was more interesting when it was the Hitler Channel. How do we know Hitler wasn’t an alien? :eek: ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2014, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dammit-history-channel-will-you-please-just-stop/680980/47 "2014-02-11T15:21:16Z")
> [@LawMonkey](#): > > Different channel (Science, not History), but… I used to live a couple blocks from the original New York Obscura shop (and then a few more blocks from their new location on Ave A). The shop is as you see it on the show, and so are Evan and Mike. Actually bought a deer skull from Evan–she’s quite nice and pleasant to chat with. 🙂 And there’s the difference between the two shows. Evan and Mike are real people, relatively normal people who happen to have a keen interest in the outre and run a shop catering to its devotees. The outre people are the customers. The SF crew are playing outre characters as hard as they can. ---
**Author:** ![Pine\_Fresh\_Scent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/43a26b/32.png) [@Pine\_Fresh\_Scent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pine_Fresh_Scent)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2014, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dammit-history-channel-will-you-please-just-stop/680980/48 "2014-02-12T06:27:04Z")
> [@EddyTeddyFreddy](#): > > Crap espousing such nonsense is bad enough on any network; it’s particularly disheartening to see such garbage on a channel that supposedly seeks to enlighten its viewers about history – especially when the preceding program that day on H2 was a two-hour exploration of the engineering marvels of ancient Egypt, with thoughtful explanations of precisely how those long-ago people – supposedly unable (if you buy the ancient aliens theory of antiquity’s achievements) to have constructed their massive monuments without starfolks’ assistance – went about doing just that despite their lack of modern machinery. Turns out that those ancient Egyptians were endowed with the necessary smarts and skills to do it all themselves. > > And that’s what really pisses me off, when you get right down to it – the underlying idea that human beings, especially those not blessed with all our modern apparatus, were simply too dumb and incompetent to figure out anything more complex than mud huts; that “primitive” peoples were – and still are – lesser beings than our smugly smart current selves. So Neolithic man wouldn’t have a clue what to do with a computer or a backhoe? Big whoop – your average modern man wouldn’t have a clue how to survive, let alone thrive, in the Neolithic world. It’s just different skill sets, not a quantum leap in intelligence. And it sure as hell isn’t the guiding hand of mystical beings from a galaxy far, far away. > > So come on, History Channel! You can do better. Sometimes you actually do. Please, please knock off this ancient aliens shit – it’s embarrassing. And dumb. > [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > You’re not wrong, precisely, but you’re skating around the real issue. These channels are profit-driven and only a marginal amount of their profit comes from cable licensing revenue. They have become the bulk filler in the channel lineup. They are as dependent on their ad revenue as any NBC affiliate, so what you are seeing is the nodal point between what advertisers will pay to reach their audience and what their audience will tune in to see. The cheapest drek that brings in the largest number of eyeballs is what runs. The minimax point for most channels is reality shows; not much that’s cheaper and right now not much that will draw a bigger audience. (In another time, it was talk shows.) > > It is very much a case of “giving the audience what they want”… but instead of selecting the audience and then giving that selection what they want, it devolves to simply giving ANY audience - the largest one that can be captured - WHATEVER they want. Which likely no longer has anything to do with History, Arts & Entertainment, or the Discovery of anything but, well, things people will pull out their Discovery cards for. [Same as it ever was.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cfwsfGqgPM) Full speech [here](http://www.turnoffyourtv.com/commentary/hiddenagenda/murrow.html). > [@](#): > > EDWARD R. MURROW > > RTNDA Convention > Chicago > October 15, 1958 > > …I am frightened by the imbalance, the constant striving to reach the largest possible audience for everything; by the absence of a sustained study of the state of the nation…Do not be deluded into believing that the titular heads of the networks control what appears on their networks. They all have better taste. All are responsible to stockholders, and in my experience all are honorable men. But they must schedule what they can sell in the public market. > > …Just once in a while let us exalt the importance of ideas and information. Let us dream to the extent of saying that on a given Sunday night the time normally occupied by Ed Sullivan is given over to a clinical survey of the state of American education, and a week or two later the time normally used by Steve Allen is devoted to a thoroughgoing study of American policy in the Middle East. Would the corporate image of their respective sponsors be damaged? Would the stockholders rise up in their wrath and complain? Would anything happen other than that a few million people would have received a little illumination on subjects that may well determine the future of this country, and therefore the future of the corporations? > > …To those who say people wouldn’t look; they wouldn’t be interested; they’re too complacent, indifferent and insulated, I can only reply: There is, in one reporter’s opinion, considerable evidence against that contention. But even if they are right, what have they got to lose? Because if they are right, and this instrument is good for nothing but to entertain, amuse and insulate, then the tube is flickering now and we will soon see that the whole struggle is lost… ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2014, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dammit-history-channel-will-you-please-just-stop/680980/49 "2014-02-12T14:00:59Z")
It’s simpler than that: **Television is a marketing medium that shows less overtly promotional content part of the time.** There may have been a time when the actual program content was the important aspect of television. Wherever you might choose to draw the line, that changed long ago. The content of television is entirely secondary to its role as the primary promoter for the cycle of consumption. (Two notes: “Television” means all equivalent broadcast, widecast or narrowcast video portals. You also have to draw a distinction between \*content \*and _commodity_ here. Content is what draws ads. Commodity is sold on its own merits - full length movies and premium programming shown without ads because they are paid for otherwise.) ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2014, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dammit-history-channel-will-you-please-just-stop/680980/50 "2014-02-12T15:39:56Z")
Ya know, having read Neil Postman’s _[Amusing Ourselves to Death](http://www.amazon.com/Amusing-Ourselves-Death-Discourse-Business/dp/014303653X)_ many years ago, I shouldn’t be so put out about all this nonsense; but sometimes the juxtaposition of what TV is and what it could be is just too much. ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2014, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dammit-history-channel-will-you-please-just-stop/680980/51 "2014-02-12T15:49:47Z")
> [@EddyTeddyFreddy](#): > > So come on, History Channel! You can do better. Sometimes you actually do. Please, please knock off this ancient aliens shit – it’s embarrassing. And dumb. And yet, you watched it. It’s all about the ratings. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2014, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dammit-history-channel-will-you-please-just-stop/680980/52 "2014-02-12T16:05:00Z")
> [@EddyTeddyFreddy](#): > > Ya know, having read Neil Postman’s _[Amusing Ourselves to Death](http://www.amazon.com/Amusing-Ourselves-Death-Discourse-Business/dp/014303653X)_ many years ago, I shouldn’t be so put out about all this nonsense; but sometimes the juxtaposition of what TV is and what it could be is just too much. I think the early battles, like Minow’s comment about the vast wasteland and Murrow’s rants about the lack of serious focus, are lost. However, we have a thousand channels and I don’t know that it’s a crisis because not all of them concentrate on highbrow content 24/7/365. That all but a fraction of television has been bent into a sales tool, and that marketing is allowed to bend and influence every aspect of it, is a far worse problem, and one that doesn’t seem to get addressed as much as the general whine that “TV is crap.” Even if half of appeals to the dimmest tenth of the audience, TV doesn’t have to be crap. It’s crap because we let it be. ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2014, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dammit-history-channel-will-you-please-just-stop/680980/53 "2014-02-13T03:44:36Z")
> [@White SIFL](#): > > And yet, you watched it. It’s all about the ratings. Well, sort of. While surfing the web and playing solitaire on my laptop, in between clicking around to see if anything else even remotely worth watching was on. Because I couldn’t believe it was really that bad. “Might be… it’s possible that… some say… could it be that…?” and POP! went yet another weasel. I think I wound up switching to some regional news channel’s weather report, then getting up to clean the cats’ litter boxes. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dammit-history-channel-will-you-please-just-stop/680980.md?page=2)