The seemingless endless interviews with diverse allegedly expert commentators on the virus crisis have dominated, the BBC, CNN, Fox and other international channels and have thrown up a particular American oddity.
That is American purported experts always finish the interview by saying, “Thanks for having me.”
What does this reveal!
Dame Julie Christie explained it to me about 15 years ago when, in hindsight, I foolishly agreed to participate in the New Zealand Dragons Den show. At the time I thought it would be fun. It wasn’t.
After one interviewee was disposed of I said to her, “That fellow was plainly quite bright. Why on earth would he put such a dumb proposition to us?”
“Easy,” Julie said and God only knows, she as producer of numerous dumb public participation shows certainly does. “People will die to be on television,” she explained.
This presumably explains why utter nobodies line up to be humiliated by the likes of “Marriage at First Sight,” “The Bachelor” et al. But it also explains why not some but all American expert interviewees are so grateful to have their day in the sun.
10 Comments
Equally puzzling to me is the comment ‘thanks for taking my call’.often said to radio talk-back hosts.
One would have thought being on TV as a so called expert commentator that receipt of an appearance fee would be more than justified for the mental torture of suffering the interviewers but I’m willing to bet that their expert qualifications wont stand the scrutiny their vanity obviously requires and this will all be down to some deep personal obsession.Some of these fools will be dispensing what little intellectual property they have for zip.
Regrettably we have some of these lightweight types spouting absolute nonsense in this country and perhaps the media has a list of those to go to when something silly needs to be said .An absolute Shambles
Those repeat offending lightweights dying to be on our televisions must be candidates for death by overexposure sometime soon surely.
Exposure equals money (in other indirect means such as speaking engagements) for the accomplished.
Exposure equals the hope of attaining the above for those without accomplishment. Hence the Julie Christie comment.
Of course Sir Bob already know this. I find the American habit of television guests applauding themselves even more mystifying.
I agree but everywhere now, including Gozone NZ, people clap for themselves… crazy to me. We of the older school wouldn’t dream of clapping ourselves. May as well send oneself a telegram when one turns 100 years old.
But the “Thanks for having me” – as a young lad I was taught to say that as a thank you before I left someone’s home after staying as a guest.” Well, I was never once had in such homes, thank god – luckily, my parents never sent me to stay with a bent priest.
Yes, couldn’t agree more with Dame Julie.
Back in the 80s when reality TV was starting to take hold of us I was so very wrong when I said “You’ll never get Kiwis doing this bullshit on the telly.”
I still hate reality TV on principle and rarely watch it but – though I hate to admit it – it can be mesmerising, hence I need to stay away from it.
To put an alternate slant on this discussion , it is my observation that most intelligent Americans are unfailingly polite.
Hence the ubiquitous ” you’re welcome “
Living in Britain for over a decade, I only ever heard “You’re welcome” said sarcastically. i.e. You would thank the British person sarcastically for something they had done, and they would reply “you’re welcome” in kind.
This has resulted in me having a life-long twitch whenever I hear “you’re welcome”. I even double take when a yank says it. Of course, the Americans are extremely unlikely to be being insincere – they don’t specialise in banter, sarcasm and irony like the British…
Wonder if the hazard is not the Covid, the bomb, the Muslim, the Y2K, the Climate, Saddam, the Russian. What if the actual weapon is the TV? The TV and its sycophants are deliberately attacking us.
as americans say “a gun society is a polite society” … those inconsiderate bastards that didn’t say thank you have already been shot!
Bang on BigSmoke12,when there’s lead in the air, there’s hope in the air.