Pundits, Scandals, and a Facebook News Feed

I am on a weeks hiatus from my comedy show (Third Banana), so naturally with a week off I have to be hit by a bad cold. It's given me a lot of time to sit around and watch 24 hour news channels and marvel at the lengths they go to fill each one of those hours.

I've also been filling commercial breaks checking Facebook, following my 'news feed' of what friends are up to. Combined in some sick head cold of a hallucinogenic imagination I began to wonder what it'd be like if all our lives were followed by a 24 hour news network...

Jackson Cooper: We're going to take you now to a story that is just breaking.

GFX: An elaborate animated sequence takes over half our television with the words "Situation Chat Up"

Jackson Cooper: Derek has been sighted at a local video store engaged in what some witnesses describe as flirting. For more we turn to DNN reporter Judy Owen, joining us via phone.

Jackson: Judy you are on the scene right now can describe what is going on around you?

Judy: Hello Jackson, I'm here at the site of the video store. It's quiet here now but just moments ago witnesses believe they witnessed Derek flirting with a video store clerk.

Jackson: A video store clerk? Now this is something new! Can you confirm this?

Judy: No, no not at all, but I overheard someone saying it and I've been asked to update you on this situation, so I thought I'd report it.

Jackson: Thank you Judy. Well some fascinating new information on Situation Chat Up, we'll be staying with this as it continues to unfold. But first, joining us now our regular panel of Derek Robertson experts. Lisa Sax, former Derek dater.

Lisa: Hi Jackson.

Jackson: Shelley Schultz, an adviser to Derek's girlfriend Amanda.

Shelley: Evening Jackson.

Jackson: And Ed O'Neill, token University professor.

Ed: Good to be back Jackson.

Jackson: We're glad to have your irrelevant opinion join us again too Ed, but first Lisa, is Derek chatting up a video sales jockey?

Lisa: I think its a little early for us to make that sort of judgment, if we...

Shelley: A little early? Unidentified witnesses may have seen it happen, and you know Jackson, I think the question we should be asking is not what happened, but how is this going to impact Derek's girlfriend?

Ed: You know it's interesting...

Lisa: I am sorry Shelley, but I've got a long history with Derek and this is just not credible.

Ed: If I could add, what is interesting is...

Shelley: Slut.

Lisa: Excuse me?

Jackson: Sorry, I need to jump in here, Ed, what are your thoughts?

Ed: What is interesting is that if we use history as a guide we can point to a number of times when Derek went out of his way to try and make sales clerks laugh, for instance the infamous 2005 American Eagle incident.

Shelley: Which makes todays situation all the more alarming.

Lisa: I think we need to remember during the 2005 American Eagle incident the sales clerk convinced Derek to buy a pink polo shirt, so who was playing who? Who Jackson was the real victim?

Ed: It's true Jackson, he did look like popular pink ball shaped Nintendo character Kirby.

Shelley: I don't think we should get distracted from the issues here...

Jackson: I'm sorry, we're going to have to cut away for a moment, I am getting word someone was uploaded a video of what we've dubbed Situation Chat Up.

A grainy cell phone video plays of two shapes having mumbled conversation before we cut back to Jackson.

Jackson: This story is blowing wide open, so now lets check back in with our pundits, Ed?

Ed: You know Jackson, we have to look at the bigger picture, digital downloads and rentals are on the rise, video stores are quickly becoming outdated, will history remember this as the day Derek was left behind?

Jackson: Another excellently crafted off topic question to fill the void while we wait for real facts to fill this newscast.

Ed: They don't go giving out the title of professor to everyone.

Everyone laughs awkwardly.

Jackson: We're going to continue to monitor this breaking news story, but first let's check in with some other stories we are following.

Jackson turns to another camera.

Jackson: As laundry goes unchecked for another day, is Derek on the verge of running a clean clothes deficit?

William Shakespeare once wrote "All the world's a stage, yadda, yadda, yadda..." you've heard it a million times, quoted by seemingly everyone. But maybe in the 21st Century things are different. With the internet merging with our obsession for information we begin to follow the lives of those around us more as a viewer then as a player. Perhaps all the world is a newscast, and all the men and women merely micro celebrities, they have their scandals and their fluff pieces, and one man in his time plays out many prime time stories, his segments being seven ages.

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