Why do people engage in soulless crap?

When I was a kid my parents would make me watch the X Factor (A high buget trashy singing show that is disgustingly popular in the UK) with them, and being a kid, I didn't think much of it. Childeren don't question routine that they grew up with because it doesn't occur to them that there's any other way. I watched this garbage passivley for years, until when I was around 10 it suddeny hit me: they are watching this on purpose. I had never felt any kind of emotion or mental stimulation watching it, it was utterly worthless and they knew it. It had absolutley no reason to exist in my life apart from 'because thats what you do'. They often joked about how all the music was crap and the show was trash, but they chose to watch it anyway. They say it's 'good trash'. Why do people do this kind of thing? What justification is there for wasting your time with something that brings you no joy, or for that matter any emotion whatsoever? Not relaxing, not interestng, just nothing. I understand that people like to unwind with low effort entertainment after a hard day, but there are plenty of low effort sources of joy that are not fuarrrking rubbish and that actually have the potental to entertain.

They either wanted to socialize with their kid through proxy of soykaf on TV or they wanted you to go on X factor. Either way it doesn't matter because you can't go back in time.

>>4262 is idolsoykaf bascially X Factor for weebs?

I feel for you OP, it's a serious problem in society. Reality TV, celebrity gossip, low-quality pseudojournalism, most of those instagram/youtube channels that just pump out hyped up dross, all fall in the same kind of category. Most of the justification I've seen from people, you've already touched on -- they say they're only consuming ironically, or that they're watching because it's so bad. "Yeah the Bachelor is stupid, I just watch it to laugh at how stupid it is ..." but they're twelve seasons deep. They want to give the impression that they're laughing at the producers of the content, when in reality the producers are laughing at them -- they're profiting off them! They imagine they're different to the majority of the audience -- fools, who "seriously watch this stuff" -- but no such audience exists. They're all serious fools. It's sad that sinking into this high-fructose crap is the path of least resistance after having a hard/boring/crushing day at work. But if work is "dead time" then it means the only other time left to people (so-called leisure time) is also turned into "dead time". Whole years can pass this way.

Reality TV is like a full on assault on the senses, I hate that soykaf. I know it's played out to complain about it, but it really will rot your damn brain.

It's really no different than generic video games or pointless anime about absolutely nothing. Reality television is like moe anime for normmies.

There should be a place in your life for relaxation. If that's the way people want to wind down, let them. However as >>4268 pointed out, it becomes a problem if it's just the thing you do every day, because it's the thing you do every day.

I'm reminded of the book The War of Art. It is about overcoming the resistance to pursuing the sort of meaningful, creative goals that we have deep down. Indulging in the sort of meaningless drivel that we're talking about is a symptom of this resistance. I guess one of the main reasons people experience this resistance is fear. Rather than chasing our dreams we pull ourselves through the monotony of normal person life and numb ourselves with meaningless media among other things.

>>4288 >Rather than chasing our dreams we pull ourselves through the monotony of normal person life and numb ourselves with meaningless media among other things. I find myself doing the same thing with chans and reddit. Hours pass with absolutely nothing gained. Now and then I'll find some meaningful info but most of the time I'm just scrolling through endless posts, making replies, and getting off on the dopamine rush from (yous). It's just as worthless as all the televised trite and it's a terrible waste of time. Sometimes I wonder how people would spend their time in an environment where work is almost totally replaced by AI. Does everyone have that creative drive and it's been ground out of people through school and careers?

I've never been able to seriously engage with that kind of thing. But, everyone needs to waste brain cycles somehow. I do it with the internet. Modern first-world society removes so many dull parts of everyday life(travel, cooking, etc.) that you need something else to fill that time, be it stupid TV shows or getting high or video games or internet use. You need some activity that uses the bare minimum of brain cells for long periods of time. I've been trying recently to replace my internet addiction with reading books, but it's so hard beause I read very fast and good books are hard to come by. The ideal, for me, is to train myself to not waste brain cycles except when I'm legitimately tired, and spend the rest of the time doing something productive or active. I think it can be done.