Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Ok so I used to listen Glenn Beck on the radio in the late 90's and early 2000's, before he got his TV deal. I always enjoyed his witty humor and agreed with his conservative view points.

Now on the way home from the necronomicon tourney I'm listening to him, and it doesn't sound anything like what I remember. What I heard was a fearmonger. All he was talking about was how he was going to personally investigate "whats going on" in america and inform us the listeners. And he consoled his listeners to trust him to find out "whats going on", as though he were going to start his own secret CIA or something.

I haven't really watched much of his TV show, but it seems like he has found a new audience of paranoid xenophobes. It kind of reminded me of the Jim Jones recordings from Guyana.


GG

I like talk radio and I used to listen to Beck, but he seems disingenous (sp) to me. For all of his talk and rants and tears I don't know what to think of him.

He figured out hyperbole, fear mongering, and lunacy brings in more listeners. It could just be that he has snapped and lost the part that reigns in the more delusional ideas. He does make a lot of charts and illustrations now to so if you need visual aids he has something for you.

I'm not American so I don't know enough about Glenn Beck's early days but I've seen plenty of his stuff since he moved to FOX. But I have heard a lot from political talking heads here in Australia, and from what I've seen on FOX he seems much like them (although Beck is a lot crazier).

I think a lot of these folk grow very accustomed to only hearing people agree with him. Probably in part because they're blowhards with no ability for self-reflection, but as they become bigger their audiences tend to be dominated by people who agree with them (and they'll just cut off any caller that disagrees). From there the problems start feeding themselves. Slight tendencies towards conspiracy and paranoia never get challenged, and only grow.

So you end up hearing a guy and he sounds like just another reactionary, shocked at the morning's headlines. Ten years later you hear him again and now he's disappeared down his own political rabbit-hole, and it'd probably be an interesting idea for a media study to track every step down.

Ahtman wrote:He figured out hyperbole, fear mongering, and lunacy brings in more listeners.

I am thinking this + the rabbit hole scenario Sebster mentioned as most likely. A few times I have watched him on TV where he was attending some Ultra Nationalist rally. The new American Nationalism is scary, not as bad as the BNP but in a few years it may get that bad.

GG

He's rich and laughing at all us losers?

I think he's just out of his mind.

Why? He's road that shtick into serious bucks, just like Huffington has with her raving nonsense website.

And Rush Limbaugh
And Michael Moore
And Michael Savage
And Janine Garofalo
And Neel Boortz
And Chris Matthews
And lots more but I've run out of wingnuts as I don't listen to them.