The TV Hero Complex

I have noticed that many of my contacts on social media are obsessed with the idea of a given tv hero. This is to be expected since television is providing us with more and more of these models. Literally every other series revolves around a hero who is mostly a loner, intelligent, honest, sarcastic, daring, an underappreciated unique snowflake that nobody understands but somehow ends up saving the day (and preferably the world).

The producers of these tv series are very well aware of the current human condition. Social Media has estranged most people with their environment, allowing stories of grandeur to fill up their minds. Producers craft their storyboards around this narcissistic trend, hoping their audience to reflect and generate profit.

This is the same trick religions used with their gods and prophets. A special snowflake goes through a ride of passage that ultimately rises above all creation and reaches salvation. We create stories that fullfil our deepest desires. We realise our condition and we are afraid. Our mediocrity and eventual demise, surrenders our identity to stories that elevate us to something greater, unattained. This is how hope becomes such a valuable commodity.

Social Media and TV series are fueled by this obsession towards perfection. In both instances, people present themselves as they wish others to perceived them. Everyone is more or less aware of this charade but still, everyone falls victim for the same illusion. This leads into a perpetual whirl of marketable deception that eliminates the dreaded mediocrity and rather presents the extreme as the new norm. The video with the million likes, the fool that gets ridiculed. These are extreme events but they appear in our feed as normal. The normal on the other hand has disappeared.

Pop culture has made us more psychotic than ever before. This vast availability of TV stories has overwhelmed our generation with mirages that take us further and further away from reality. In the past, we had 2 maybe 3 religions, stories of grandeur that most of us reflected in order to get on with our lives. Today we have one for each and every one of us. The devious hacker, the brilliant detective, the loner teen.

The frame of these stories is also important. Most successful ones revolve around a cataclysmic event, a global collapse — yet again reflecting the same old religious narratives. The average human being is dissatisfied with the state of the world —and most importanlty — his own mediocrity. This is why paradise is so welcoming. This is why the destruction of this world and something new is always welcomed. This is why TV shows are so addictive. They allow an escape from the self into the realm of the wannabe.