Ted Williams, the homeless man with the golden radio voice, has captured the hearts of America.



*cue sappy music*

So why does this whole ordeal make me a bit queasy? First, let's recap what we know:

- Young Ted likes radio.
- Ted tries to get work in radio.
- After moderate success, Ted dedicates his life to drugs and alcohol.
- Somewhere along the way, Ted has nine kids.
- Ted becomes homeless, finds god, gets clean(?) and begs for money on the street.
- Video of Ted by local reporter goes viral, Ted finds himself buried under a plethora of golden job offers and media attention.

A rags to riches story? Maybe. But something still smells funny to me. Sure, the original video does tend to tug at the ol' heart strings; after all, who doesn't want to see Ted get his life back on track?

But I can't help but raise my brow at the universal outpouring of sympathy for this man, who speaks eerily in the same sincere tones as the meth addicted pimps who patrol areas of my home city. Interview any of them and you'll find they are also clean, upstanding honest citizens who have just happened upon some rough luck. Surely Ted Williams' deep regret for leaving his partially blind wife to raise their kids alone is enough for the world to forgive him?

But there is something even more powerful at play than our human need to believe that even the shadiest of characters are genuine and sincere. It's the fact that Ted Williams story is marketable, and thus profitability trumps a social conscience.

Offering somebody a house and job 24 hours after their rise to fame strikes me as neither genuine nor sincere. In fact, Williams' reunion with his estranged mother was delayed by a day while NBC and CBS negotiated the rights to the story. Business first, humanity later.

Ted Williams has an interesting future ahead of him, and nothing in the media has indicated to me that anyone is prioritizing his clearly fragile mental health. For Ted's sake though, I hope he finds himself in the company of those who can properly asses and treat whatever might have sent him down the road to addiction in the first place. If he relapses, I'm sure the media would be more than happy to cover that story too.

After all, heart-strings can be tugged in many ways, but profit is immune to empathy.

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