Oprah’s Legacy - How Television Can Affect the Way We Feel
For millions of viewers, Oprah Winfrey has been like a friend who has come into their homes five days a week to share their lives. -CNN
And like that… *poof*… she’s gone. The media juggernaut known as Oprah Winfrey hosted her final show yesterday to a teary-eyed country of viewers. One wonders how this collective moment of sympathetic emotion might disrupt the universal stream of consciousness, the same way I used to wonder as a child what it would sound like if all the dogs in my hometown started barking at the same time (you could link them up doghouse-by-doghouse to create a domino effect). But let us digress and examine the qualities of long-running shows and how they affect us emotionally.
“We all, in our own way, have been inspired by Oprah,” said Shameeka Ayers, who planned a Southern hospitality viewing party at the Four Seasons Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia, in honor of the final show. “To me she epitomizes the notion that if you can dream it, you can be it. I know that sounds trite, but if you look at her life, you see how true it is.”
Spanning 25 seasons, The Oprah Winfrey Show is both the longest-running and highest-rated talk show program in history. But what makes a show resonate so deeply within the minds of a viewer? Longevity is certainly a key factor. Longtime viewers of a show can reminisce on past moments as if the memories of being on set were their own. We grow with the shows that we love (and even some of the ones we just mildly enjoy). To quote one of the six friends in the hit show Friends (I don’t remember who said it — probably Rachel), “It’s the end of an era!”
