Who is Josh Duhamel, and Why Are We Yelling About Him?

This space is dedicated for the moment to what is commonly called "a shout-out," and the approbation here is directed towards Dave Hiltbrand of The Philadelphia Inquirer for his (long-overdue?) condemnation of a TV trend that has me continually grinding my teeth. In his column this morning, Hiltbrand takes television as a whole to task for its current operating theory, which might be summed up as follows: "PUMP UP THE VOLUME!!!!!" (This usage comes with apologies to the folks who made the fine teen-age film by the same name starring Christian Slater and Samantha Mathis.) Hiltbrand's focus is on a show called The Insider, which I have never seen - and, now, likely never will - because I've been given fair warning. Apparently, the foundation notion for it is gathering luminaries such as Lara Spencer and Chris Jacobs(???) to debate such weighty matters as whether or not Josh Duhamel was unfaithful to Fergie...at a high decibel level. The sub-title of Hiltbrand's column is "Right or wrong doesn't matter. Only volume counts," and his argument is that yelling at or over a debate opponent is far too evident on TV currently. He's right, of course, but he might have extended the thought on some of these debates: about some matters, right or wrong truly doesn't count. Period.

And as nicely written as his piece is, Dave doesn't go far enough in his criticism. This volume "thing" extends well beyond those shows involving actual debate, whether about the cosmically important or not.

Think back about this question: when did you first notice that shows kick up the volume when they go to commercials? !990? 2001? 1985? That's been standard procedure for quite a while. Apparently the theory is that, even if you've left the room to make a ham sandwich, you can still hear the pitch. This "pump up," however, has become very, very noticeable in the past few years. It is now literally impossible to ignore the ad that shouts about the newest Dodge truck on heels of the heroine quietly passing away in a drama. One simply can't grab the TV control quickly enough. (A word of advice to advertisers who are enamored of this technique, though: it is actually counterproductive because people have become conditioned to simply muting the volume on ads entirely. The product may register, but the sound is TOTALLY GONE within two seconds. Even the shortest ads lose at least 13 seconds of argument.)

And that brings us to the next and, perhaps, most important point: pity the children. They are all being trained by television to yell, not only by adult-target ads and shows that feature "debate," but also by "their own shows." The folks at Disney and Nickelodeon, for example, are the worst offenders in this regard. They seem literally incapable of producing a program that does not feature dialogue that's not three-quarters YELLING. This is true of the worst shows targeted at them (The Suite Life of Zack and Cody); it is true of the best (iCarly). Children and 'tweens are being conditioned to expect life to involve, first and foremost, VERY LOUD EXCITEMENT, to "understand" that proper communication involves screaming in another's face. The implicit message is that one must be "some kinda nerd" if she is not howling with joy (or dismay) about 45 minutes out of every hour.

It all has convinced me that the modern TV writer's most important tool is the Caps Lock key.

I CAN'T BELIEVE IT!!!!!!!

Source:

Hiltbrand, David. "All together now, group: Scream!" The Philadelphia Inquirer 17 November 2009: C1.