Years and years and years ago, I listened to Howard Stern on the radio. He was funny. Really funny.
And then, over a period of months, he shifted emphasis. The material became more raunchy, more of what would come to be called the “Shock Jock” mentality. It annoyed me. He seemed better than this type of material. As if doing real humor was too hard, and he was going for cheap gags about flatulence and breasts. Plus the major problem with shock humor is that you have to keep upping the ante, until it’s all about the gross out rather than anything approaching wit.
So I started listening to other stuff.
It’s now years later and Stern is saying that the show will probably be folding its tent altogether as the Clear Channel dumps it from major markets and the FCC issues bug bucks fines for indecency.
What I’d like to know is this:
When in the intervening twenty-plus years since I last listened to Howard Stern were station selection controls removed from radios?
Have they become overly complicated? Have people lost the ability to manipulate them? Is every radio in the world locked in to the stations carrying his show so that people have no choice but to listen?
I mean, I don’t understand why this isn’t a no-brainer. I don’t think Howard Stern is funny. So I don’t listen to him. What the hëll kind of mentality are we living in where it’s decided that Howard Stern isn’t funny and he must be punished for it or driven off the air or both? This makes zero sense to me. Am I that much smarter, better, niftier than so many others that I just say, “I don’t think that’s funny, I’m not going to listen anymore?” and then do that? I’m unclear on why everyone can’t do that, rather than decide on behalf of those people who *do* like Howard Stern that they shouldn’t be allowed to hear it.
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