Rotten Apples

Let's take this analogy and run farther with it than anyone in their right mind ever intended...

The Marketplace is media and the public is the shopper. The shopper could be looking for anything, but in this case, let's say she's looking for fruit. No, it doesn't have to be fruit, but I like fruit. Write your own analogy if it bugs you that much!

Ok, fruit. The underlying theory residing in the marketplace is that the shopper will continue perusing fruit until she locates that one apple that shines brighter and tastes sweeter than all others. I've decided that the shopper should be a "she" and probably of some ethnic descent. If the individual was a white male, he probably wouldn't be allowed to visit the market in the first place. Digression aside, the other vendors, unable to compete with the unparalleled apple, would be forced to seek another venue, or disappear from the market long enough for everyone to forget about them.

I don't think the theory should be scrapped, it definitely has some good points. Besides, it has been a really long time since I've had a really good apple. The marketplace does provide a nice battleground for competition, and those that really have something to offer can excel. Not only that, but we see things at the marketplace we may not just love, but that we need, like bread, vegetables, or fish. What self respecting marketplace wouldn't have a big decapitated fish head for all to see.

There are some problems though. At some point, somebody jacked up the rent on stall space. In order to survive, vendors had to let people cover the fronts of their stalls with posters and fliers. In many cases the fliers are numerous enough to hide the apples. That's all assuming that you even like apples. Perhaps you like some really obscure fruit that most shoppers couldn't even pronounce. If it isn't cost effective for the vendor to carry it, you won't find it in the marketplace. That leaves you sad, with an empty nagging feeling in the pit of your stomach. Speaking of not finding things in the marketplace, we just assumed that the marketplace even housed some kind of uber apple. What if a really good apple didn't even exit. What if all the apples were bad. What if the shopper never learned how to pick a good apple.