People do the dumbest things to get noticed, between the wife swaps and Paris Hilton looking for a new best friend, we are presented with a family who take their 15 minutes of fame to the extreme.
For two hours on October 15 millions of people had their eyes glued to the television to find out the fate of Falcon Heene, a 6-year-old boy who was reported to be missing in a giant mylar balloon that had taken off from the Heene’s family backyard in Colorado.
Heene’s dad, Richard had reported the incident and from then on it was a TV frenzy that in the end maybe a hoax, because the balloon was empty and Falcon was hiding in the family’s garage.
Falcon told reporters in interview that his dad said “they did it for the show.” The wife also said it was a hoax.
Which gets back to the first statement that people do the dumbest things to get noticed.
While 99 percent of us were glued to the TV waiting to see the outcome, it seems as though the one percent, being the Heene, saw this as what could have been a horrific situation as a chance to be a propaganda stunt.
There is enough known about this family that the whole “balloon boy” scenario was a hoax.
First they try to pitch a reality show to producers based on their zany life to the producers of “John & Kate, Plus 8”. The dad is known to put his kids in harms way chasing storms and tornados.
Let’s face it, we could call the balloon boy incident the teaser for their reality show: “The Heene’s Do Dumb Things.”
Reality television has made it easy for anyone to get noticed, and the balloon boy incident is an example of how reality TV can be bad.
This family thinks it is OK to place their kids in dangerous situations and for what? So their names end up in the paper for the next couple weeks and for 15 minutes they are famous on TV until something more interesting comes along.
The only way the Heene’s could be reprimanded for trying to capitalize on this hoax is to give them what they want, constant coverage about their family history, bizarre behavior and inquiries into putting their children in danger.
Maybe by over-sensationalizing them, they will realize being on television is not as cracked as it may seem to be. They have made a mockery of the media and a mockery of what it means to be a human being. Falcon was grounded in the incident and his parents should be too, or more aptly their bubble needs to burst and reality needs to set in.