Neil Postman - From Television to TikTok: How We Really Are Amusing Ourselves to Death

“What happens when the man who saw it all coming returns to tell us… we misunderstood the punchline?”

In this premiere episode of They Tried to Warn Us, we resurrect the voice and mind of media theorist Neil Postman—the man who warned us that entertainment would devour public discourse, and that we might laugh ourselves into tyranny.

Recorded from beyond the grave (don’t worry, it’s not creepy—just uncanny), Postman joins our host Ray Welling for a conversation that feels more relevant now than when Amusing Ourselves to Death first hit shelves in 1985. In fact, it may be more relevant today.

We ask Postman what he thinks of:

• TikTok, Trump, and 24-hour news
• Whether Orwell or Huxley got it right (spoiler: Postman was Team Huxley)
• Why he thought the printing press created reason, and TV dismantled it
• The meaning of his infamous phrase: “Now… this.”
• What schools have forgotten—and why tech won’t save them
• How algorithms shape belief
• And what he thinks of our podcast dragging him back from the dead…

Postman responds with the clarity, wit, and dry dismay that made him one of the most prescient cultural critics of the 20th century. This isn’t nostalgia. It’s a warning we’re finally ready to hear.

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