Monday, October 16, 2006

Why Blogger Buzz Stays in the Blue States

We've seen it time and again. Arctic Monkeys have a disappointing debut on Billboard despite all the blogger love. Snakes on a Plane couldn't match the internet hype. "The Daily Show" is constantly referenced in cyberspace, but "Two and Half Men" is the highest rated TV comedy.

Why? Many rural areas do not get broadband internet access which means more people watch broadcast TV and listen to terrestrial radio than go on the broadband internet. True, more and more people are getting their news, entertainment - even education - from the web. But those people tend to live in urban or suburban areas. In other words, in the city or by the city.

That's why we have our Gawkers and Brooklyn Vegans, not our Goobers and our Biloxi Venison Eaters.

Turns out Hillary Clinton wants to change this. She has recently introduced the Rural Broadband Initiative to help bring the red states up to speed. This is a good idea considering these same areas did not have electricity until the '40's, with the help of federally funded programs like the Tennessee Valley Authority.

Until then, allow me to make the following prediction: Borat will no make money at box office. Not only is it getting a lot of blog buzz, it also makes fun of red state residents. Meaning many of these sumbucks who don't get cable TV (preventing them from watching "The Ali G Show" on HBO) or broadband Internet access (limiting the time they spend web surfing) will

a) not know anything about the film
b) hear nothing but bad things about it from the few that did see it thinking Borat was Jeff Foxworthy dying his hair black and making fun of A-rabs

1 comment:

Cibbuano said...

Borat will always have a warm welcome in my home...