What the mass media offers is not popular art, but entertainment

Host: The studio was empty — the spotlights dimmed, the monitors flickering with static, their blue glow painting the room in ghostly shimmer. An unfinished set lay before the camera: a mock living room with bright plastic furniture, fake smiles frozen on posters, and the faint scent of coffee, sweat, and electric dust. Outside, the city pulsed with light — billboards screaming in color, headlines scrolling endlessly across glass towers.

Host: Jack sat on the stage, slouched in a director’s chair, a cigarette between his fingers. His face was lit by the cold glow of a blank television screen, his eyes reflecting its emptiness. Jeeny stood behind one of the cameras, her hands resting lightly on the tripod, her expression somewhere between curiosity and sorrow.

Host: On the teleprompter in front of them, frozen mid-scroll, were the words of W. H. Auden:

“What the mass media offers is not popular art, but entertainment which is intended to be consumed like food, forgotten, and replaced by a new dish.”

Host: The line glared back at them — as if the room itself were guilty of the truth it contained.

Jack: “He nailed it, didn’t he?” Jack said, exhaling smoke. “We’ve turned art into fast food. No nutrition, no aftertaste — just dopamine and decay.”

Jeeny: “That’s what the world wants, Jack. Something easy to swallow.”

Jack: “Yeah, but the problem is, they keep swallowing — and no one ever feels full.”

Host: The hum of the fluorescent lights grew louder, a mechanical sigh above their words.

Jeeny: “You talk like the world used to be better.”

Jack: “Maybe it was,” he said. “Or maybe the lies were just slower.”

Host: Jeeny stepped around the camera and sat on the edge of the set couch — the fake one, built from hollow wood. She ran her hand along its surface, her fingers catching on a stray staple.

Jeeny: “People always say ‘mass media’ like it’s a villain. But it’s not. It’s a mirror. We keep asking for distraction because we’re terrified of reflection.”

Jack: “No,” he said sharply. “It’s worse than a mirror. A mirror reflects truth. This—” he gestured toward the screens, the cameras, the props — “this distorts it. Polishes the pain, filters the real. You ever notice how news anchors smile when the world burns?”

Jeeny: “They smile because they have to survive,” she said. “It’s performance, Jack. Everyone’s performing — even the audience.”

Host: A brief silence followed. The static on the screen shifted, flickered, then cleared for a moment — showing an ad for a new streaming show: “Escape Reality — Tonight at 9.”

Jack: “See?” he said bitterly. “Escape Reality. That’s the tagline of our century. Auden saw it coming — entertainment as anesthesia.”

Jeeny: “And yet here we are, sitting in its temple,” she said, looking around the studio. “You’ve made your living off that very anesthesia.”

Jack: “Yeah,” he muttered, crushing his cigarette in an ashtray. “And every day, I feel a little more numb for it.”

Host: The neon clock on the wall blinked 1:47 AM. Outside, faint sirens wailed — the soundtrack of a world that had forgotten how to pause.

Jeeny: “You think people stopped caring about art?” she asked.

Jack: “No,” he said. “They stopped recognizing it. Art used to be a mirror that showed you who you were. Now it’s a screen that tells you who to be.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s not new,” she said thoughtfully. “The Church once did the same. Kings did too. Power has always needed stories to keep people quiet. The media just industrialized it.”

Jack: “Yeah,” he said, “but at least back then, the stories had meaning. Even lies had poetry.”

Host: The light from the monitors reflected in his eyes — small blue fires flickering in grey storms.

Jeeny: “So what’s the solution?” she asked quietly. “Turn it all off? Go live in a cave?”

Jack: “No,” he said. “You can’t turn it off. You fight it from the inside. You remind people what it feels like to taste something real.”

Jeeny: “And what does that look like?”

Jack: “Something that lingers,” he said. “Something that hurts a little. The kind of art that doesn’t beg to be liked — it demands to be felt.”

Host: Jeeny leaned forward, her gaze steady.

Jeeny: “You’re talking about truth.”

Jack: “Yeah,” he said. “But truth doesn’t trend.”

Host: A faint smile crossed her lips — sad, knowing.

Jeeny: “Maybe not,” she said. “But hunger does. People don’t realize it, but they’re starving — not for content, but for connection.”

Jack: “And we keep feeding them noise.”

Jeeny: “Because silence terrifies them.”

Host: The room fell still again. The only sound was the distant hum of servers somewhere behind the walls — the machines that stored humanity’s distractions, 24 hours a day.

Jack: “You know,” he said after a long pause, “Auden wasn’t just talking about media. He was talking about us. The audience. We want to be entertained because it’s easier than being enlightened.”

Jeeny: “And yet we keep coming back for the next ‘new dish,’” she said. “It’s not even about enjoyment anymore — it’s about filling the void.”

Jack: “Maybe that’s the tragedy,” he said softly. “We replaced meaning with momentum.”

Host: The static returned on the screen — flickering images of advertisements, influencers, politicians, war zones, laughter tracks. Everything blending, blurring, becoming meaningless through repetition.

Jeeny: “Do you ever think art can survive this?” she asked.

Jack: “Art’s stubborn,” he said. “It hides where the noise can’t reach — in poems, in silence, in small acts of defiance.”

Jeeny: “Like what?”

Jack: “Like someone refusing to scroll,” he said. “Like someone watching a sunset without posting it.”

Host: The light from the monitor dimmed, leaving their faces half in shadow, half in glow — one side digital, one side human.

Jeeny: “So we keep making noise,” she said.

Jack: “No,” he whispered. “We keep making meaning.”

Host: The camera pulled back slowly — revealing the empty studio, the unplugged microphones, the hollow stage where truth and illusion had blurred into one long performance. The teleprompter still glowed faintly, the words frozen mid-sentence, like a ghost from another time:

“What the mass media offers is not popular art, but entertainment which is intended to be consumed like food, forgotten, and replaced by a new dish.”

Host: And as the light faded from the screens, the message lingered like a warning — or a prayer:

Host: That real art doesn’t feed you for the moment — it feeds you for the soul. And while the world may devour distraction, it will always hunger for truth.