Honey Boo Boo gets her own show on the Learning Channel

The Learning Channel is dabbling in eschatology, and will soon air a programme starring young miss Honey Boo Boo Child, a young beauty competition participant from the Toddlers and Tiaras phenomenon. Miss Boo Boo Child came to notoriety due to her exuberant personality, fuelled by frequent nips from flasks of high sugar/high caffeine pick-me-up, this latter prepared by her doting mother.

In this clip, Boo Boo and family demonstrate the sort of educational material we can look forward to in the future from the pedagogists at the Learning Channel.

Here Comes Honey Boo Boo: Coming Soon! (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: eschatology • Kids • parenting • tv • videos

More at Boing Boing

Ants and Stars: Bruce Sterling and Jasmina Tesanovic visit the Sardinia Radio Telescope in Italy

The Snowden Principle

B Timothy Creel

Do they even pretend that TLC stands for The Learning Channel anymore? I used to love TLC and Discovery for all the documentaries, but they lost their way.
- http://twitter.com/nagmay Gabriel Nagmay
  
  Agreed. They’ve strayed so far that even the Don Hertzfeldt promos wouldn’t seem out of place: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qd64zf6N9QI
  - http://disqus.com/Kimmoth/ Kimmo
    
    Eh? Hertzfeld is cerebral mind candy next to this moronic drivel.
- zarray
  
  http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NetworkDecay
- James Sannino
  
  it’s gone the way of KFC
Wild Rumpus

I’ll start.

The Ludicrous Channel? Totally Lame Crap? Change to TeeElCee?

C’mon Boingboing – what does it mean?
- http://celesteagnes.blogspot.com/ Sekino
  
  According to a reliable inside source, it stands for Terminally seLf-absorbed bumpkin Circus.
  - http://disqus.com/Kimmoth/ Kimmo
    
    You win 50,000 points for the phrase ‘terminally self-absorbed bumpkin circus’.
- unit_1421
  
  Touching Little Children?
  - iamlegion
    
    No, that’s already taken for Penn State’s community access channel…
    - Wild Rumpus
      
      Oh! Dude – too soon, man, too soon…
      - Antinous / Moderator
        
        Actually not soon enough by some decades.
- agreenster
  
  Totally Lame Crap is perfect.
- SofaKing
  
  Titanic-Like Communications
- donovan acree
  
  Toddlers Like Cash
- dioptase
  
  I’ve thought for a while it stood for The Little-people Channel. This show doesn’t change my mind.
geekzapoppin

Her special juice is going to help her win; or so I’ve been told.
- Andrew Singleton
  
  It’s like kiddie Meth.
  - rattypilgrim
    
    Has it been tested? Maybe it is.
http://twitter.com/AwesomeRobot AwesomeRobot

I don’t want to live on this planet anymore.
- rattypilgrim
  
  Me either.
- chainmaile
  
  I don’t want *them* to live on this planet anymore.
- http://aqfl.net Ant
  
  Ditto, Professor.
chilero

This must be on right after my favorite show Ow my balls! I just love where television is going these days!
- Wild Rumpus
  
  relevant: http://youtu.be/T0n8QmLtmFA
millie fink

Going to the Learning Channel for learning is like going to the History Channel for history is like going to McDonald’s for a salad is like going to a dominatrix for a hug.
- unit_1421
  
  You’d be shocked at how many sex workers appreciate some genuine affection…
  - benenglish
    
    How right you are. I’ve gotten a hug from a dominatrix. I wish Millie Fink the opportunity to understand how possible and wonderful it can be. The story -
    
    Mid-90s, Vegas, 30 minutes before the doors opened for seating for the AVN awards. I’m standing with my group, wondering where our table will be, and I spot the notorious Miss X and her sub (not their real names).
    
    Me: “Oh, look! There’s Miss X. I have to go over and say hello.”
    
    My group gasps in shock and horror: “Bu-bu-bu-but you CAN’T! That’s Miss X! She’ll…she’ll…”
    
    Me, interrupting: “She’ll what? She’s a person. I’m a person. I’m a person who admires the performance art they create. I should thank them for that.”
    
    I walk over. There’s this little extra-wide bubble of space around them that no one dares violate. I walk right in and they both stop talking, turn to me, and glare.
    
    Me, with a perfectly straight face: “Excuse me. I do apologize for interrupting. My name in Ben English and I just wanted to thank you for the art you make. Whenever I’m called on to review one of your films, it’s always a refreshing break from the day-to-day dreck and I really appreciate that. Why, if it hadn’t been for you two, I would have never understood the erotic potential of a hot glue gun.”
    
    They sort of stare at me a moment, processing. At exactly the right moment, I let a little smirk creep onto my face.
    
    Both of them burst out laughing, hug me, and we have a brief, jovial conversation between sincere fanboi and artists.
    
    As I bade them goodbye, I noticed that nearly all conversation nearby had stopped and every eye in the area was on me, some glaring, some confused, some clearly angry. I returned to my group.
    
    My colleagues, clearly shocked: “What the hell happened? How did you get through that…intact?”
    
    Me: “I’m a person. They’re people. No big deal. They seem quite sweet, actually.”
    
    My group just sort of shook their heads and moved slightly away from me. For the rest of the convention and the next couple, I was “That crazy guy.”
    - Marc
      
      How I believe this really went – everything happened up to, “My name is Ben English…” and then they choked you out with a riding crop for daring to speak before being spoken to. The rest is clearly hallucination.
      
      SHAZAM.
      - benenglish
        
        I know you’re kidding but it did happen. Tip: Go back to the mid 1990s and look for my name on the masthead of Adult Video News magazine.
- Jer_00
  
  Nope.
  
  I’m pretty sure that if you paid a prostitute for a hug you’d get a damn fine hug.
  - gnp
    
    Well, one guy supposedly had really bad luck trying that, but at least no money had exchanged hands yet.
  - MynameisBlarney
    
    A Dominatrix is not a prostitute.
    But for that matter, you could just pay some random lady for a hug.
    - blueelm
      
      Hell, you could just stand around begging for a hug and some lady would probably hug you. Free hugs?
      
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hN8CKwdosjE
      - MynameisBlarney
        
        I’m gonna try that one day.
    - morcheeba
      
      I’m 99% sure millie originally said prostitute & edited her post to dominatrix… so Jer_oo’s joke fit better & didn’t confuse the two.
      
      Edit: 100% sure. See below; my feeble memory isn’t failing me yet!
- knappa
  
  how about s/prostitute/dominatrix/ ?
  - millie fink
    
    Done, thanks.
LikesTurtles

Can’t wait to see the “Where are they now?” episode featuring her twenty years from now.

Pretty sure someone got confused and put her on the wrong channel. She would fit in well on the Family Learning Channel: http://youtu.be/Qd64zf6N9QI
- johnnylloydrollins
  
  why bother showing a “where are they now?”. All you need to do is look at her family and see where she will be 20 years from now.
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    Yup.
  - http://profile.yahoo.com/EAVWHPKKWZYPNAOTDLHBWLH7HE Snap G
    
    Hopefully part of the same apparently loving,close and funny family and not having been ruined by “fame.” Just because this family have been raised in an entirely different culture then some of us doesn’t mean that they aren’t happy people.
    We need to leave them in their native environment and don’t Jon and Kate them.
    - http://jonathan-peterson.com/ Jonathan Peterson
      
      they WANT the Jon and Kate experience. they’ve been actively seeking it for YEARS.
    - C W
      
      “having been ruined by ‘fame.’ ”
      She’s got nowhere to go but up.
- Ambiguity
  
  Usually “child stars” go through the formality of waiting until adulthood before ODing on Oxycodone in some run-down hotel room, but I think we have the making of a new world record here.
- Lurking_Grue
  
  I’m a consumer whore!
  - Coderjoe
    
    And how!
Antinous / Moderator

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCbfMkh940Q
- ocker3
  
  forshadowing, they’re doing it well
- euansmith
  
  I feel safer already!
- Gutierrez
  
  Just make sure to check the landing gear when you get back. Honey Boo Boo could be hold up in there.
Repurposed

This is where ‘cultural slumming’ jumped the shark into just ‘culture’.
- http://illustratorhints.com/ Jesseham
  
  Ouch. I think you hit the nail on the head.
http://www.facebook.com/dr.erick Eric Ruppel

I just learned something. In fact, I think I’ll go back to school.
unit_1421

Even just watching the trailer may set you on the path to ending up with a toddler in your trunk, so just don’t look.
nomad411

Makes me so glad I don’t have a TV, OR Cable..
Donald Petersen

Oddly enough, I gotta say it: it could be worse.
- Mike Robinson
  
  When you’re falling down stairs, the next bump can always be worse.
  - Donald Petersen
    
    You said it.
Happler

I am not sure if it is good or bad that I have the opportunity to post this:
http://youtu.be/_8jeuYMHX9Y
- chgoliz
  
  Yes.
- millie fink
  
  9 Fat Kids, 1 Dessert
- http://twitter.com/justplainscott thomas scott
  
  YES. I wanted to post this but figured (hoped) that someone had beat me to it.
  “The Divorce Horse” FTW
Scott Slemmons

Oh please hurry, mighty and merciful planet-killing asteroid.
mccrum

Christ, what an asshole.
jsd

This is straight up child abuse. Get these kids out of these homes. It’s not funny.

EDIT: Where they’ll end up in crappy foster homes and underfunded institutions. Ah, fuck. I’m out.
http://profiles.google.com/marc.k.mielke Marc Mielke

WTF did I just watch?
- Repurposed
  
  Civilisation, declining.
  
  Luckily we can go down claiming we’re better than someone.
iamlegion

This is one of many reasons why I don’t watch tv except by download anymore. If I could find a way to give cable _negative_ money because of things like this, I would.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  Keep signing up for free cable trials. They’ll waste money delivering your new box and mailing you shit.
Josiah White

You’re giving them free advertising. Think of the small percentage of people who would have not watched this if you haven’t had posted it. You gave the show that many viewers. Ignore ignore ignore!
- millie fink
  
  Ah, but it also gave so many of us BBers something to elevate ourselves with. And for others of us, something to commiserate over.
- snagglepuss
  
  You actually think that bOING bOINGers are going to watch that ? Are you new around here ?
  - Happler
    
    Some boinger is going to watch it just for the train wreck possibility of the show.
    - http://illustratorhints.com/ Jesseham
      
      *Many* Boingers…
    - C W
      
      They did the same thing for Jersey Shore, Palin’s show, everything horrible forever.
- C W
  
  Yeah, “LOOK AT HOW TERRIBLE THIS IS. LOOK IT RIGHT IN THE MAW” is their PR strategy.
http://www.tumbleweed.net/ tyger11

The learning from bad examples channel?
http://twitter.com/cocktail_shaker The Mixologist

Reality shows like this is why the movie I’ve most enjoyed in a long time was America The Beautiful,
The Squidboy

Didn’t watch the trailer, the original post was too creepy. Haven’t lived in the USA for awhile, and US media nowadays is often too disquieting to consume.

But, from dictionary.com:
es·cha·tol·o·gy

1. any system of doctrines concerning last, or final, matters, as death, the Judgment, the future state, etc.
2. the branch of theology dealing with such matters.

???
- http://disqus.com/Kimmoth/ Kimmo
  
  The End Times will be televised.
  - Donald Petersen
    
    “Will be”? Or rather, “are being”?
    - http://disqus.com/Kimmoth/ Kimmo
      
      ‘Will be’, cause without it there’d be no Gil Scott-Heron reference.
- http://devojane.blogspot.com devophill
  
  > dabbling in eschatology
  
  I think the implication is that they are immanentizing it. The eschaton, that is.
dahbe

Mayan’s come through wormhole. Blow up world.
Boundegar

Don’t listen to them. I love you, Honey Boo Boo.
- http://profiles.google.com/westcarleton Ray Perkins
  
  Yeah, the best thing about this show is that it will help me convince my wife we should drop satellite TV.
http://profiles.google.com/dagard Ryan Brown

I’m more than willing to believe in Jesus, the Space Lizard, Prexus, whomever, as long as they make things like this stop.
- voiceinthedistance
  
  How many deities are on your list? Are they all separate, or is the first one Jesus, the Space Lizard.
  - The Squidboy
    
    The Spaghetti Monster, aka Yahweh/Odin/Cthulhu is the one true gawd!!
    
    Fortunately, Cthulhu is running for president as an alternative to Robamney:
    http://www.cthulhu.org/
benher

The Lard Culture
Adam S.

Too bad there really is no Hell for the person responsible for this to burn in
- ironbear
  
  Oh the irony of a 1996 Washington Times article called “John Hendricks: Cable Pioneer Discovers Value of Putting Substance over Style.” Hendricks founded Discovery/TLC and continues to serve as Chairman of the Board. Shame on you, sir.
http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/KHUGSYMRDZ635QMFO5P6UA5MTM nunya

Uh, ‘honey boo boo’ is what my sister used to call her babies non solid diaper poos.
DewiMorgan

They have to dumb TV down, because the average viewer IQ is plumetting.

Don’t worry for the fate of humanity, though: this is only because smart people are turning it off in droves, and turning on the internet.

Here, we debate cerebrally on 4chan, youtube comments, and… *whimper*

We’re doomed.
http://codeflow.org/ Florian Bösch

I would watch it, I’m also looking forward to the upcoming show “ow my balls” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAg1r6zw7Bg
- blue balaclava
  
  Wait, that was on last night’s America’s Got Talent.
  
  I’m not kidding.
  
  http://realitytvmagazine.sheknows.com/2012/07/24/americas-got-talent-recap-the-final-12-go-balls-out/
http://noctilucent-studios.blogspot.com/ Noctilucent Studios

I feel like I’ve witnessed a train wreck just from the short description and still photo!!
JohnAWilson

This seems like the television equivalent of the web’s ‘People of Walmart’.
http://twitter.com/MrAaronSwainEsq Aaron Swain

What are we meant to “learn” from this show?
- http://disqus.com/Kimmoth/ Kimmo
  
  Your tolerance threshold for fuckwittery?
- C W
  
  Why television writers are unnecessary to make countless millions? Why reality TV will never go off the air?
notasheep

This may be the only show on TV with its own built-in warning: “Here Comes Honey Boo-Boo.”

Please, for whatever your gods’ sake, heed it!
Tedhealey

DAMNIT!! You Americans will block John Stewart and Colbert clips to Canada, but you gladly shoot this crap across our borders??

Sirs! Prepare for more Martin Short!
- mccrum
  
  Yes please! “Lift, Dragon! Lift with VIGOR!”
  https://vimeo.com/2462812
- dahbe
  
  Martin Short is awesome
- Felton / Moderator
  
  Of course, you realize this means war.
blueelm

Well that’s depressing.
ian_b

As long as they cut to Michio Kaku from time to time for his salient insights.
Grok

The Loser Channel?

I can’t seem to receive it on my ChannelMaster antenna……….Thank God!
http://profiles.google.com/ckriebel Colin Kriebel

You’re all way too picky, I for one look forward to the new season of “Little People, Tricky Refrigerator”.
mgoulart

I think the word you’re looking for is scatology not eschatology.

Scatology: the study of or preoccupation with excrement or obscenity.

Eschatology: any system of doctrines concerning last, or final, matters,as death, the Judgment, the future state, etc.
rocketpjs

Nope, I think eschatology is the right term for this stuff.

Television seems to be in a death spiral. That said, there are some points of light (i.e. Breaking Bad).

Why anyone pays for cable anywhere is beyond me.
- http://twitter.com/Beryllium9 Beryllium9
  
  Ironic that your example for “points of light” (and breaking bad is a damn fine show, I might add) is itself about a death spiral, of sorts.
  
  (cue “that’s not irony!” posts. No, you’re right – it’s methy.)
redstarr

We still pay because to get those few bright spots, we have to buy into all the garbage,too. Like to get higher quality stuff that I love like Mad Men and Game of Thrones, I also have to buy into the cable packages that contain the networks that air them. Sadly, under the current system, they’re not available ala carte (well, I think you can actually watch Mad Men with a slight delay paying per episode on itunes I think, but since I’m already buying the cable to get other stuff that’s not available that way, it’s not a good value for me.). If all of the show content was available streaming on demand by itself, I’d gladly ditch cable channel subscriptions. But until then, I’ve got to buy the whole muddy pig just to get a little bacon.
- http://disqus.com/Kimmoth/ Kimmo
  
  Sadly, under the current system, they’re not available ala carte
  
  Eh?
  
  Fuck em, dude. You think things are ever going to work like they should under the old regime? The only way to move this forward is to hurry up and totally break the business model.
  
  Any ethical concerns that keep you chained to some fatcat’s racket be damned. Better to hasten the inevitable, and hope we can figure out a new way of making it work.
  
  IMO it’d be pretty sweet if you could just download whatever content you wanted from the government, who then reimburse the artists out of consolidated revenue. A corollary of ‘information wants to be free’ – humanity wants to be socialist.
realityhater

Really???!!! TLC - I would have to be in a semi comatose state in order to keep my attention on the garbage they produce and air , producing yet another winner in the mindless dribble they call programming. I so wish A LA CART PROGRAMMING was a reality , instead of the reality that “the Learning Channel ” is no longer what its namesake states.They should change their name to ” TMCC The Mentally Challenged Channel – We need to ask a very basic question “Why am I forced to pay for ABSOLUTE CRAP that I do not want or watch. THANKS FCC !!! oh and by the way I don’t speak Spanish either so you can take those crappy channels off my bill as well -

oh how I wait for the day when we can actually pay for just what we want to watch !
- http://disqus.com/Kimmoth/ Kimmo
  
  Who’s forcing you to pay for stuff you don’t want to watch?
  
  For that matter, who’s gonna force you to pay for stuff you do want to watch, beyond maintaining an internet connection?
elix

It’s shit like this that led me to ask my cable ISP to stop calling me with TV-related promotions, because I’ve said no to them every time they’ve asked me to sign up for cable TV boxes for the last seven years, and with dreck like this, I’m not changing my mind anytime soon.

Also, I’m not saying this as a joke, I mean this with all the misgivings one would expect: That girl’s gonna get raped before she’s 10, given how she’s been raised so far. “Daddy Issues” doesn’t even begin to cover it. I hope I’m wrong about this.
- dahbe
  
  Ricky: With all due respect, Mr. Dennit, I had no idea you’d gotten experimental surgery to have your balls removed
  .Mr. Dennit: What did you just say to me?
  Ricky: What? I said it with all due respect!
  Mr. Dennit: Just because you say that doesn’t mean you get to say whatever you want to say to me!
  Ricky: It sure as hell does!
  Mr. Dennit: No, it doesn’t–
  Ricky: It’s in the Geneva Conventions, look it up!
capnmarrrrk

Are you sure that show isn’t all ET the Walrus in different costumes like Eddie Murphy in The Klumps?