Because we, as a nation, as a people, as a society, have no grasp of history--even recent history--we are in the grips of periodic upwellings of Hysteria.
Truly, the Boston Marathon bombings were horrific. But we act as if they were some portend of "TEOTWAWKI." (The end of the world as we know it.)
We forget that between 1974 and 1983 when they presumably moved to a retirement village in south Jersey, the FALN--the Fuerzas Armadas de Liberacion Nacional, a Puerto Rican terrorist group was responsible for more than 120 bomb attacks on American soil, including attacks on Fraunces Tavern, four midtown attacks in 40 minutes in mid-town Manhattan and sundry other explosions around New York and Chicago.
Ultimately, FALN activities resulted in 72 actual bombings, 40 incendiary attacks, 8 attempted bombings and 10 bomb threats, resulting in 5 deaths, 83 injuries, and over $3 million in property damage.
No, instead of realizing that terror/anarchy/hatred and explosions always have and always will exist, we act, as a society, like teenagers who believe that theirs is the first generation to discover sex.
In marketing, we have also succumbed to hysteria.
The hysteria of media that's changing everything.
Google +, Pinterest, Foursquare, etc. are all supposed to kill or have killed traditional advertising. Agencies up and down our metaphorical Madison Avenue scurry around like blind mice chasing these tiny bits of marketing hysterics. Entire disciplines and specialties spring up like flies spontaneously generated from piles of offal. Facts and data are ignored.
Hysteria.
Everything new is relevant.
Everything old is dead.
Everything needs re-invention.
The world is ending.
