I constantly monitor the “most read” index in the newspapers that I regularly read, both Arab and foreign. The index itself has no importance in relation to the importance of the news or book, but it indicates people’s moods, trends, and interests, whether in major crises or on normal days.
We notice that, except in cases of extreme danger, such as the Gaza war, people flee to entertaining and highly absurd news, and nothing changes in people’s lives. For example, the news of the former US representative to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, took precedence over all other events. Not because of her fight against Donald Trump, but because of her extramarital affairs.
Good. It can be understood here because it is about a famous lady. But in Lebanon, mired in war and danger, it remained the most popular site for a story about a traveler who asked for a flight attendant’s hand in marriage before the end of the trip. If the host were Taylor Swift and beau Brad Pitt, we’d understand. But the whole issue is a hostess, a passenger, and a normal flight between Beirut and another city.
People want to escape to what comforts them. No matter how ordinary or unbelievable the situation may be, they believe what they wish for. Men and women go to astrologers to hear from them what they wish. Any expectation other than that is rejected by them and they consider the astrologer a failure.
In this sense, the indicators appear to be evidence of the psychological state that groups are going through, and the fragility of tired peoples. The indicators are mostly news of marriages and divorces between artists. They are successive, and resemble the series they represent. A fellow journalist asked who gave her her funny name, and she said that her mother heard it in one of the soap operas.
The realities in our world are many and difficult, so we live our lives in flight from them. Several days pass and the most important event for people is that a young man asked for a hostess’s hand, but in the highlands. The reason is that all the other news was boring: no presidency of the republic, no presidency of a government, no chief of staff, and no presidency of a school. So, engagement at 35,000 feet.
I hope you don’t think badly of me. I do not object to the state of escape, but to some of its forms. That is, escaping from political news becomes a reason to make an air engagement the most important event of the day. Or that Mrs. Laila Abdel Latif’s “prediction” of divorce or artistic marriage becomes the event of events. We are all aware of the depression we are experiencing. The state of despair, fear and loss. But to the extent that the “most read” becomes a traveler proposing to marry a stewardess, couldn’t the hero have waited until the moment of landing at Rafic Hariri International Airport?
