Hi, I understand what you mean in your "Heroes Welcome" post.
When they first announced the show "Heroes" I thought the idea of everyday people discovering they had unusual abilities would be interesting.
Unfortunately the show quickly dropped into the "It's not natural it's just part of a government experiment"
The show "Fringe" has done the same thing.

I've noticed a trend in the media that anyone that has an usual ability it's never because of a natural cause.
In TV shows people have the abilities because of Aliens, Government experiments, getting hit by lighting etc.
And the people that have the abilities are usually portrayed as mentally unstable or just odd.
There seems to be a constant message from the media of
"They are special people and you can't do that because your not special"

I was just wondering if anyone else has noticed the same trend?
Thanks,
Michael

Hi, Ok when I wrote the previous post I had not seen the recent episode of "Fringe" yet.
Seems episode 5 "Power hungry" is about a guy who can control electricity because he was changed by a corprate/goverment experiment.

Because of this he has several "Hackaccidents" as Lisa describes them.

He's portrayed as a 30 year old loser that still lives with his overbearing mother.

If you want to watch the episode online you can find it here.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/39176/fringe-power-hungry

Thanks, Michael

Ash, I spent all day yesterday thinking about your post while I was running errands.

I absolutely agree that the media keeps "chickening out" when it comes to paranormal phenomena, but there may actually be a practical reason for it--at least with the fictional stuff. I happen to know for a fact that both "Heroes" and "The 4400" each had concerns about being too similar to "X-Men." And, of course, in X-Men the abilities are completely natural (unless enhanced as in the case of Wolverine). So at least part of the trend towards government-induced abilities might be a creative attempt to stand apart from the X-Men universe.

Also, I tend to see this as a "glass half full" situation. There are more and more shows centered around these ideas and the public is obviously responding well to them. This means they are (on some level) acclimating the idea of people having abilities whether it occurs naturally or is artificially induced somehow.

The problem is that most people seem to be terrified and violently reactive when you suggest that the fictional model might have a counterpart in real life. Hopefully, people like us along with the emerging wave of scientists supporting these ideas will help ease that transition.

What is also interesting is that in real life application, we are finding that while we are dealing with latent natural ability, we are going to need a good deal of hardwired technology to fully unlock these abilities. So there is a good chunk of truth to the "artificial induction" model anyway.

Oh, and I love "Fringe."--at least for now (JJ Abrams' stuff always starts strong but tends to poop out by the third season). I've been saving the latest episode to watch when I need a break!

Yes, I am thankful that these shows are doing well.

Fear of the unknown is what I believe is at the root of mainstream opinion in regards to extraordinary abilities. These shows hopefully dampen these fears while opening up acceptance even though it might be on a subconscious level.

There are many of us "waking up" to new realities and hackabilities.

Great to see I'm in good company.

Hi. Just joined the forum. Excuse the lack of further introduction but I'm in a bit of a rush...

I think the natural-only portrayals of paranormal abilities by mass media are equally discouraging. It's like they're saying "oh, you can't do this already? you must not have it, kid." Using training, meditation, group/forum therapy, and artificial induction to awaken the latent abilities that *everybody* has is what I'm most interested in.

Speaking of artificial induction, I'll post a new topic on a force toy...