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Curing My TV Shame
Mar. 10th, 2008 12:36 amGrowing up I was like any other kid. Waking early on Saturday mornings for cartoons. I would eat my whole grain cereal and skim milk with a serving of fresh fruit and enjoy The Transformers, GO-BOTS, The Real Ghostbusters, Gummibears and a whole other host of direct marketing channels. Just like any other kid.
As a teen in the 90s I loved The Tonight Show, SNL, X-Files, Sliders, Law & Order. And then one day in 1998 I got a cable modem and stopped watching TV. Slowly. I stopped going to movies once I started working shift work. I started reading blogs and newspapers. My priorities changed and I changed a bit along with them.
Some people say it's some sort of generational ADHD thing. I suppose that's a decent theory but I think it goes deeper than that. Sounds more like diagnosis via acronym than an actual reason for a change in behaviour. One thing I realized recovering from my teeth surgery is that I was having more fun managing my bittorrents, transcoding the content and playing with my iPod on my TV than I was following the plot on the shows.
To real it up a bit I actually had to be in physical recovery taking a prescription narcotic to enjoy TV. That says something about me I think.
It's not that I can't sit through TV or a movie. I just feel like my time is better spend being actively interested in something. There has always been that schism that savvy marketers and entertainment producers alike have identified. When we're doing things, in this case entertaining ourselves, there are different modes of observation. You can be active or passive. Participating in what you're consciously observing or just an observer.
I gotta admit something up front here. I went to a Montessori method school until Kindergarten. I kinda grew up doing things myself and learning through experience. So really, formatively before my mid-80s TV 'education', I was learning to do things this way. I think it has a lot to do with my attraction to hacking, art, computers, the internet in general and blogs particularly.
And lots of people would assume that I'm some sort of intellectual snob for not being into ANTM or Project Runway or Battlestar Galactica. Which is untrue. I think TV is a neat craft not unlike pottery, running your own weather station or retrofitting your home with renewable energy sources. It's just the dedication to passively sitting in a chair and being entertained, at this point in my life, is an unattractive proposition. What do I get out of it? I can talk to other people about something and relate to them through somebody else's idea, metaphors and narratives. I'd rather talk about non-fictional characters are up to most of the time. If want to get deep into fiction I'll watch a movie or read a book.
But for some reason TV seems out of the question. I can pick-up the cultural ephemera in sound bytes, quotes and clips. I've decided I'm actually OK with that. I've been saying fierce despite not watching the recent crop of fashion-based reality TV.
Maybe if I had the time, money and inclination for a PVR I'd get back on the pop cult bandwagon. But I'm so far gone now that I have few pretences as to returning to the fold. To be honest it is a bit lonely but it could be worse. So many of you, my dear bloggist friends, enjoy your syndicated TV quite a bit. And that's not for me to judge for you. But I'm happier for not being into TV as much as I was in the earlier decades of my life. To think back even 10 years ago and think that the death grip of cable TV could be loosened... and yet miraculously it has come to be.
Bummer it has been replaced by the ever-pervasive multimedia Internet. On our computer screens, in our pockets and actually useful there. It's a blessing and a curse.
As a teen in the 90s I loved The Tonight Show, SNL, X-Files, Sliders, Law & Order. And then one day in 1998 I got a cable modem and stopped watching TV. Slowly. I stopped going to movies once I started working shift work. I started reading blogs and newspapers. My priorities changed and I changed a bit along with them.
Some people say it's some sort of generational ADHD thing. I suppose that's a decent theory but I think it goes deeper than that. Sounds more like diagnosis via acronym than an actual reason for a change in behaviour. One thing I realized recovering from my teeth surgery is that I was having more fun managing my bittorrents, transcoding the content and playing with my iPod on my TV than I was following the plot on the shows.
To real it up a bit I actually had to be in physical recovery taking a prescription narcotic to enjoy TV. That says something about me I think.
It's not that I can't sit through TV or a movie. I just feel like my time is better spend being actively interested in something. There has always been that schism that savvy marketers and entertainment producers alike have identified. When we're doing things, in this case entertaining ourselves, there are different modes of observation. You can be active or passive. Participating in what you're consciously observing or just an observer.
I gotta admit something up front here. I went to a Montessori method school until Kindergarten. I kinda grew up doing things myself and learning through experience. So really, formatively before my mid-80s TV 'education', I was learning to do things this way. I think it has a lot to do with my attraction to hacking, art, computers, the internet in general and blogs particularly.
And lots of people would assume that I'm some sort of intellectual snob for not being into ANTM or Project Runway or Battlestar Galactica. Which is untrue. I think TV is a neat craft not unlike pottery, running your own weather station or retrofitting your home with renewable energy sources. It's just the dedication to passively sitting in a chair and being entertained, at this point in my life, is an unattractive proposition. What do I get out of it? I can talk to other people about something and relate to them through somebody else's idea, metaphors and narratives. I'd rather talk about non-fictional characters are up to most of the time. If want to get deep into fiction I'll watch a movie or read a book.
But for some reason TV seems out of the question. I can pick-up the cultural ephemera in sound bytes, quotes and clips. I've decided I'm actually OK with that. I've been saying fierce despite not watching the recent crop of fashion-based reality TV.
Maybe if I had the time, money and inclination for a PVR I'd get back on the pop cult bandwagon. But I'm so far gone now that I have few pretences as to returning to the fold. To be honest it is a bit lonely but it could be worse. So many of you, my dear bloggist friends, enjoy your syndicated TV quite a bit. And that's not for me to judge for you. But I'm happier for not being into TV as much as I was in the earlier decades of my life. To think back even 10 years ago and think that the death grip of cable TV could be loosened... and yet miraculously it has come to be.
Bummer it has been replaced by the ever-pervasive multimedia Internet. On our computer screens, in our pockets and actually useful there. It's a blessing and a curse.
