We are witnessing a new fashion - now in almost every television interview the guest finds it necessary to first sniff the host: the phrase "Thank you for the invitation", accompanied by a condescending smile, is the sign that you should look for something else from the television stall. Because you will certainly waste your time if you expected to witness a conversation in which honesty, even in minimal amounts, is the leading principle.
Nothing like that: another grin begins, while the audience wonders why yet another lady is so upbeat, completely anonymous, but already adorned with an important state post, although she is obviously not at all aware of its weight.
During the sotsa, the following dialogue was popular among the nomenclature chiefs: "How are you, brother?" one asks, and the other replies: "We are laughing, brother, we are laughing!". By the way, the real author of this phrase was a famous poet at the time, editor-in-chief of a popular newspaper. Now this greeting can easily be refashioned as "We are laughing, brother, we are laughing!" and it will be much closer to reality.
Some more rambunctious young man could conduct a survey with our "leaders" with a single question: "What are you smiling at so much today?" - and it would be a huge success. It will certainly be remembered by the History of Bulgarian Morals, season "1989 to the End" - which, if we somehow manage to escape the morbid grin of our politicians, will not seem so far back in time, we have even managed to enjoy some of its devastating consequences.
But our rulers continue to stubbornly smile, they even dragged a certain part of the population into this exercise. How can I not say again that we are truly incomparable: instead of our rulers being devoted to the most valuable qualities of the People, part of the People has become a slave to their rulers...
Here is a convenient moment to return to the specifics of today's television interview. Most presenters don't seem to understand what trap their guests are luring them into: smiling brightly, they are clearly convinced that they will be dealing with some fools whose task is to beautify them in the best possible way, as if according to the recipe of a "kevorkism": "Her head costs five leva, and she gets a haircut for 50 leva".
Today, every major television station has a special massage and beauty salon, where they will try to distance their guests as much as possible from their true selves, so that we don't get to know them as they are - but as they imagine they are.
The procedure used for this falsification is quite elementary and painless: they bombard them with easily digestible or downright meaningless questions, and not infrequently with questions that reek of undisguised flattery. Both clients and masseurs are aware of the rules of the game, whose ultimate goal is unbearably shameful: the final meaninglessness of public speaking, which becomes increasingly murky, increasingly incomprehensible to the viewer and, ultimately, downright unnecessary - it is even unnecessary to specify that it is actually "shit"...
But the most important consequence is another, but it is not talked about at all: the false-infantile-servile speech has managed, in the end, to replace the truth about our political class - and we are being devoured by it, without even being aware of what we are seeing.
We are devouring ourselves in a Panopticon of Lies. And we have no choice but to Smile and Thank each other to our hearts content!
At one time, they named the show "Panorama" on BNT "the barbershop" - and that was even a rather merciful nickname for a production that was simply "a French Kiss Factory" - that's what I called it, and it was exactly that. And it couldn't be anything else, because both its original and permanent purpose was to deceive and offer the viewer delights, which were most often pure untruths.
Even more clearly, the "factory" offered "Elixirs for power, poison for the "common people".
Of course, there were capable journalists working there, but some of them mentioned Zhivkov's name a hundred times more than God's.
Even today, I sometimes ask myself: What is it like to be a rentier of the ability to mention someone's name?
However, I am more interested in something else: how do today's television bosses explain to their new recruits that they will not get away with it and that they must quickly learn and confess the deception of smiling and thanking?
Here, at this moment, another interviewed lady, completely certain of the success of the conspiracy to falsify the power clique, says "Thank you for the invitation!" - and stretches her smile even further; she is aware that nothing unpleasant awaits her in this conversation, the politeness will be "at its maximum" - with the exception of only physical caresses, so as not to awaken unnecessary memories and associations with the famous factory of oral excesses - and presenters have already been created who achieve the effect of physical contact with words alone. It's not a small thing.
Then another interlocutor assures us, of course, smiling broadly - maximum opening XXXXL, that there is no danger of the refugee revolt in Spain being repeated here - and continues to widen his opening. This is the convenient moment for the presenter to take advantage of his distraction and to insert - seemingly innocently and disinterestedly, any question he wants, for example:
- Are we still prepared to deal with an incident like the one in Ceuta?
However, common sense, as always, prevails and we are left without this question - just to confirm the rule that we have long been watching television interviews only for the questions that we would expect one day. No one is interested in interviews in which they thank us for the invitation, as well as for the opportunity to be fooled. This is no secret, so the interlocutor we are currently watching calmly sings his answers - and to be absolutely honest with us, stretches his smile a few more millimeters - and this is already a real miracle.
We have already completely forgotten that we did not tune in in front of the TV to experience the ritual of thanks one last time.
It must have been about something else...