Tebowing vs. Postmaning

In his the first chapter of his renowned novel, "Amusing Ourselves to Death", author Neil Postman brings up many arguments regarding the nature of society, however possibly his most interesting claim is the one he concludes his introductory chapter with. This claim is that the "Age of Typography" has woefully transitioned into the "Age of Television" (8) or in simpler terms, modern society focuses on images instead of text. Neil Postman argues that this change in the nature of society has given way to the rise of entertainment and presentation (image) over the actual quality something has (text). I agree with Postman that this is an issue facing modern society. Too often does it seem that people get swept away by something’s presentation vs. its actual value. Being a sports connoisseur, I will turn to football for my example of presentation over value. Specifically the career of one Timothy Richard Tebow, whose “fifteen minutes of fame” might be one of the greatest in the history of the NFL, and how he exemplifies the principle made by Neil Postman. Tebow played in the NFL for three years after a prestigious college career with a Heisman Trophy while playing for the University of Florida Gators. Due to his success late in games, Tebow lead his team to the spotlight and to a playoff win in 2011. After this, the Broncos shipped Tebow out for Peyton Manning. The New York Jets were naive enough to get caught up in Tebow-ing, and traded a 4^th and 6^th round pick to the Broncos for Tim. They should have followed the wisdom of Postman and looked at the hard textual evidence on Tebow, as they would have seen what kind of quarterback he was. Tebow was in fact a very par to slightly subpar player, which was evident after the Jets parted with Tebow after a single season, once they had seen what sort of QB he really was. Had they looked at the textual evidence, they would have seen a player with a sub .50 and a QBR below 30. Postman, had he been somehow the GM of the Jets, certainly would have not gotten caught up in the attention Tebow got from television and other forms of media, and would have instead opted to keep their draft picks. Tebow exemplifies how television and other media has surpassed text as the primary form of medium, as he and countless other stories, ideas, and creations become big news due to their presentation. Tebowing and his religious side was just the presentation Tebow needed, as he turned a subpar NFL career that would have gone unnoticed into a career in which he earns 1.6 million per year and 2.84 million followers on Twitter while greats like John Elway have only 300k followers on Twitter. This clearly shows the validity in Postman’s argument that people prefer an entertainer, such as Tebow, over a producer, such as a 2-time Super Bowl winner.  Tebow’s career, while an odd example, perfectly exemplifies the issue with modern society based on the principles stated by Neil Postman. Therefore, I declare that we create a new craze, which I will dub “Postman-ing”, in which everyone gauges worth based on something’s actual value opposed to its presentation. Instead of kneeling down and putting our fists to our temples, we shall go to our computers, and to our books, and find textual evidence and statistics to prove a thing’s worth.