The Creeping of Bleeping - Page 5

Now even Beyoncé is swearing and getting bleeped on television. If you are not bleeping, you are not being seen or heard.....or getting laughs. If you are not bleeping, you are not trying. The key to success in modern TV is bleeping. Remember those good old days of 2006 when a bleep on prime TV was as rare as a Northern Hairy-nosed Wombat?

And now.........AN ENCORE.....we have a 88-year old granny getting massive air play for her one liner......"I could dance all f---- day." Of course, it's bleeped. I rest my case.

For more evidence of the cultural shift toward the use of bleeping, check out the last thirty seconds of this early 2000's E! Special called "Halle Berry Revealed." You will see and hear three instances of profanity.....but the swear words are EDITED out....not BLEEPED out. Can ANYONE here disagree with the fact that these swear words would be bleeped out today? Why the change? Who was responsible for the shift from editing out swear words to bleeping them out? Nobody as of yet has an answer to that question.

And it is not that some programs edit and some bleep; they ALL bleep with the exception of live programming. And even then, if the live programming is replayed, even thought the profanity was edited out, the damn producers replaying the live event will not just replay the original edited version, but will insert a bleep where no swear word existed in the original! This editing technique must now be taught in school? How can it be so consistenly applied?

Here is the link; remember the last thirty seconds:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGQmqSFVYz8

Bleeping is jarring; not silence. If editing out swear words was the norm, your brain would be trained to know that the reason for the silence. Watch 99+ percent of video where swear words are edited out, and you know the reason. You can even figure out the word. Given that you have to go back at least 10 years before the onslaught of bleeping began. But bleeping is now used for much more than covering up swear words; writers and producers actually seek out opportunities to use the bleep in scripts, in the selection of interviews, and they are encouraged on talk shows. An extremely dramatic shift from the 90's when bleeps were seldom heard. And did bleeps even exists prior to the 90's. I still want to know how this occurred. For example, we can trace modern music to Elvis and The Beatles. Who pushed the bleep censor into its ubiquitous state? Anyone know? Heck, I have old episodes of Jerry Springer with no bleeps!

Have you heard of YouTube? Try it some time. You will find archived material back to the 50's, let alone the early 2000's. What you will not hear is bleeps from more than 15 years ago. It's a continuum that is accelerating; yet, nobody in this forum can point to either its origination or the reason for its unanimous use today in place of swear words.

There are many people who are irritated by the sounds of the bleep, especially the freaking producers who try and make them as high-pitch and extended in length as possible. I have cited articles prior with authors with these same sentiments, and I can cite forums with many others not happy with this cultural shift.

I am expanding this a bit.. I don't like bleeps because of their loud high-pitched shrill nature. I developed tinnitus for an extended period after being exposed to a home alarm. Latest trend in commercials? High-pitch smoke alarms....all over the place. FedEx just put one on the air.


In addition, marketing loves to have high-pitch EKG in the foreground, and, of course, microphones must have feedback. You can book the preceding every year. 100%. Anybody on this forum in marketing? Please change your freaking strategy. Nobody wants to hear fingernails on a chalkboard.

Correct. No good reason exists why producers cannot make the bleep less obtrusive, less high-pitched, less jarring, Studies have shown that people generally do not like loud, high-pitch noises. That is one reason that cell phone manufactures offer less jarring rings, and most people use them. Every month that passes, the frequency of bleeps increase. Can you watch an episode of Showbiz Tonight or Inside Edition, or ET, or more than an hour or two of CNN, or any of the late night television shows without hearing a bleep? No.

And now the bleeps, for the first time, are becoming common on primetime television.

As I have stated before, I can hear a bleep from a far bedroom when I didn't even realize the television was on, and if I fall asleep while watching television, a bleep will wake me up. If people can complain about loud commercial or clutter on their HD screen, I think it is reasonable for me to have a point of view on this subject. HLH: Warning about language.......then repeated bleeps, even as cursory intros to programming. It's so offensive that we are going to make sure we repeat it for you over and over and over again.
Edited by igreg - 5/14/13 at 11:11pm

Sounds like a great culture. I know in the UK the producers of commercials are forbidden from using bleeps. Not common in commercials here except for promos where they are used all the time. However, for the first time (another creeping of bleeping) two corporations are using bleeps in their commercials: Jack-in-The Box and a nameless corporation that sells combat videos for PS3.

What makes it even more infuriating is that the cable stations here do self censorship! No requirement for them to bleep out words, but they do. Heck, they even bleep words that can be said on over-the-air television.

As I am writing this, my television just bleeped. Literally hundreds of times a day now, probably thousands if you include every channel. And they all use the same high-pitch irritating sound, although some are more high-pitched and prolong (the worst I have ever heard is the Jeff Probst Show). There must be policies and procedures in how to do a bleep. Only exception is Craig Ferguson, who uses barn animal sounds - sometimes. His rabbit bleeps dozens of time when it appears.