To me, this song is obviously about how people are brainwashed, intentionally and unintentionally, by television and other forms of media. People are taught to think in certain ways, whether they realize it or not. This song seems to focus on the part of people learning things (attitudes, reactions, etc.) without knowing it (i.e. subliminally) and never even knowing it. Fake stories and even lies on the TV are literally programming people by showing massive amounts of people the same exact thing. People learn from seeing things, and whether they want to or not, they eventually emulate what they have seen and learned. Media, especially TV does in fact do this, for better or for worse. This song is obviously saying that it is indeed for the worse, which I also believe it is. Even if TV sent nothing but "positive" messages, it would still be negative in a way, because it is robbing people of their true selves. They are no longer individual, and often never have a chance to think for themselves to formulate their own opinions or feelings of things.
This reminds me of an uncharacteristically yet true quote from The Pirates of the Caribbean movies, of all places (how ironic, given my interpretation and agreement of this song, right? hahaha!): "The world isn't getting smaller, there is just less in it." This is so true, because everyone in the world is getting exposed (and therefore learning from) the same limited amount of information / experiences due to TV and the media's ever-lengthening reach. People are all becoming less individual and more robotic.
To me, this song is obviously about how people are brainwashed, intentionally and unintentionally, by television and other forms of media. People are taught to think in certain ways, whether they realize it or not. This song seems to focus on the part of people learning things (attitudes, reactions, etc.) without knowing it (i.e. subliminally) and never even knowing it. Fake stories and even lies on the TV are literally programming people by showing massive amounts of people the same exact thing. People learn from seeing things, and whether they want to or not, they eventually emulate what they have seen and learned. Media, especially TV does in fact do this, for better or for worse. This song is obviously saying that it is indeed for the worse, which I also believe it is. Even if TV sent nothing but "positive" messages, it would still be negative in a way, because it is robbing people of their true selves. They are no longer individual, and often never have a chance to think for themselves to formulate their own opinions or feelings of things.
This reminds me of an uncharacteristically yet true quote from The Pirates of the Caribbean movies, of all places (how ironic, given my interpretation and agreement of this song, right? hahaha!): "The world isn't getting smaller, there is just less in it." This is so true, because everyone in the world is getting exposed (and therefore learning from) the same limited amount of information / experiences due to TV and the media's ever-lengthening reach. People are all becoming less individual and more robotic.