As Seen On Television

 On a lot of weekends, MSNBC runs a marathon of documentaries on prison life called Lockup. The series explores the lives of people who are in prison because of committing various offenses, many of them brutal crimes against other human beings. Naturally, because I'm writing here, you know I have a few opinions about the people and stories seen on shows like Lockup that I'll bring forth.

  To begin with, there seems to be a lionizing of the most idiotic inmates. Indeed, you'll hear tales about the cell extractions and Ad-Seg units. These dudes' toughness is played up to the max for the viewer with only a rare few stories told about their victims. We aren't told in detail about what Joe Dickhead did to wind up in the most extreme custody, just that he was a bad boy.

A good many of these guys are proud of the things they do and there seems to be a lot of victim-blaming, particularly when it comes to victims of serial rapists. The us versus them mentality is an important motif, but the line between who is the hero and who is the bad guy is so blurred that corrections officers are often portrayed as deserving all of the shit they deal with on a daily basis.

When murderers and other serious offenders are spotlighted in this manner something very bizarre happens in our media age. These criminals garner fans. All it takes is a look at Youtube or any of the other video-posting sites to know that the most aggressive inmates develop cult followings, receiving positive reinforcement for their negative actions. A man may not know what Youtube is, but he'll sure know the difference between a full canteen and stacks of letters from women and the alternative.

And speaking of the broads, because I won't call them ladies, they seem like a bunch of emotionally-dependent weirdos. They all get tattoos proclaiming their love for the dude who tugs it to their photos. These dingos always act so shocked when they discover that Serial Robber Roger is stringing 264 other women along with the same bullshit story and usually the same bullshit loveletters penned by their gay cellie. They had this one chick who married one of these dickweeds and when he moved on to some other jillbilly, she went and got his brother's name inked on her. And the shocker- his brother's an inmate too.

Okay, girls, I hate to break it to you. These dudes (and sometimes butch chicks) are using you. All they want is your money and someone less furry to wank to because their particular prison banned porn. They're lonely and broke and have pissed off their families enough that mommy won't send them stipends from their SSA checks anymore. If he was so wonderful in his day-to-day he wouldn't be doing 20-to-45 for holding up 16 banks and terrorizing innumerable tellers and patrons. Just a thought- you don't have to believe me.

It absolutely burns my ass that channels like MSNBC and National Geographic waste their time and money making heroes out of the worst-behaved murderers, thieves, and skinheads in penal institutions. Giving a sympathetic eye to society's worst without exactly showing how they got there just opens up more people to the disease of unwarranted fame. Turn the cameras off and let the fuckers rot.