A few weeks ago, I wrote about Chad from The Bachelorette, Donald Trump, and political correctness. Since "The Bachelorette" is basically the only TV show I’m watching right now, you can be sure that I will reference it often. It is, in fact, what inspired my latest topic: drama being more popular (and frankly, more ubiquitous) than content.

I first must preface that this particular phrase is coined by youtuber Jacksfilms. See his video about drama on youtube below (warning: there is cursing in the bridge):

There’s drama on TV shows. Drama on social media. Drama trends on every platform. Content is boring (unless it’s #relatable and then we all want in on that). Somehow, the media thinks we’ll actually be entertained by the unnecessary emphasis on minute occurrences or a manipulation of details. And the sad thing is, they’re not wrong. We buy into the hype over someone’s subtweet or the latest gossip that ___ is cheating on ____.

On "The Bachelorette" a few episodes ago, the men found a magazine which contained gossip about JoJo, the bachelorette. They had an intense discussion about it. When JoJo found out the men had seen the magazine, she had a breakdown because her ex-boyfriend is the one who had told the magazine the (false) information. It was an emotional, drama-filled episode, to say the least. One might think, “Oh, well, that’s typical" and then move on.

Right. Except for the fact that it’s not typical. On shows like "The Bachelor" and The Bachelorette, the contestants are not allowed to look at magazines or any outlet of news (internet, television, etc). Therefore, one can assume that the producers placed the magazine in the room for the sole purpose of creating drama. Like, really? A show about 26 guys vying for one girl’s attention in a twisted attempt to find true love doesn’t have enough natural drama, to the point where you have to plant a magazine on set and try to make it look like a coincidence? ABC, maybe if you just gave the contestants something to do other than drink alcohol and sun bathe, they might be more interesting. Just a thought.

This is just one example of how the media promotes unnecessary drama. Check out magazine headlines. Look at what’s trending on social media. Midst the actual news, there’s a lot of nothing important. Nothing that matters in the long run.

No one really cares (or should care) that Calvin Harris is dissing Taylor Swift on Twitter (because seriously, how is this so different than any ex badmouthing their former significant other and heaven knows she’s done her fair share of it), even if Katy Perry did weigh in on it? Or that Taylor might have written part of “This is What You Came For?” No one should care that Zayn said an alien told him to leave One Direction because in the end, it doesn’t matter. Regardless of what convinced him to leave, he’s still not part of 1D, 1D itself is still on a hiatus, and there’s no changing the past. In fact, none of these change anything.

(Before anyone calls me out as a hypocrite for knowing about and following the aforementioned topics, I actually had no idea any of these things were happening. I literally looked at Google Trends and then scrolled through Buzzfeed’s articles beforewriting this article just so I would have recent and relevant examples. Cheers.)

Here’s the deal: when you get caught up in the drama, when you post about it on any social media, when you contribute to a trending hashtag, you’re simply perpetuating the cycle. Drama would not thrive if people refused to buy into the nonexistent hype. Like Tinkerbell, it needs applause and attention to live. The media is pretty smart. If they realize something isn’t making them profit or giving them exposure, they’ll look for a new strategy. Maybe they’ll actually give us interesting and essential information for once. It’s not likely, but a girl can dream, right?

Life is short. Do you really want to spend yours caring about unimportant, trivial things in far-removed people’s lives? Is it really worth it?