Dumbass Sayings: “Viewer Discretion Is Advised”

If you want to scare kids away from
watching, put a blood stained zombie
transvestite clown in the TV MA logo.

Before a TV show depicts an act of violence or gore they usually say “Viewer discretion is advised.” Why do they bother doing this? Who really sees that and goes “UH OH!” and changes the channel immediately? If you’re the type of person who would do that then you don’t deserve a warning and you should be shocked because guess what? Real life gets a lot worse than television violence. Anyone who is offended by TV violence should realize that we live in a world where real violence is happening 24 hours a day. The sooner you get used to it the less shock you’ll be in when it finally happens to you.

Also, when is viewer discretion NOT advised? As the viewer you should always use your discretion. Saying “Viewer discretion is advised” is just some legal crap that networks have to add to keep from getting complaints. Ultimately, people are still going to be offended by the things they see on TV whether or not they were told to use their discretion. It’s like saying “Spoiler alert” before you ruin the end of a movie. You’re saying it, but there’s rarely enough time to react anyway so why bother?