Hi, everyone.
Sorry about the delay in responding. Life cranked back up to normal and I've only been on MDC to reply to pm's for the last week and a half or so.
So, thanks for all your comments.
To reply to all of the points (am using quotes for the points, not as a particular reply to the individual, just want to point this out as this seems to be an incredibly "defense-erecting" subject around here these days):
Quote:
| So people are dull because they like to watch television? |
Well, I know an
awful lot of people who actually think that talking about a television show is a conversation. I
have actually had real conversations that involve television shows, but the conversations themselves are about, for instance, a friend of my husband's attempt to get a show on the air, not about the show itself. Or, a conversation with a friend of mine in advertising about the ad campaigns she is working on. (She doesn't watch TV, by the way, she only sees the ads on the tape/DVD at the office screen.)
Having someone ask me "Hey did you see x-y-z last night and isn't Mulder/Scully/Joey/Kramer/who
ever handsome/smart/funny/wish-he/she-lived-next-door and can you believe what s/he did to his/her friend/enemy?"
IS excrutiatingly d-u-l-l. When I discover, as I have all too frequently, much to my disappointment, that that pretty much sums up a person's attempts at conversation, then, yes, I do think that that person is dull. They are substituting nicely packaged characterizations of people and life on a small screen for real life in all its messiness. I guess it is easier, but I find it fake and, ultimately like most fake things, boring.
On the other hand, I don't think all TV watchers are dull, most of them are just addicted. But, I find that passtime particularly dull and, as I don't share in it, I don't have much to discuss on that subject.
Quote:
Then I started having health problems and started watching a lot of TV. I am addicted to a few shows.
Having been on both sides, I am no longer judgemental about TV watchers. |
Very sorry to hear you have been having health problems.
There was a short period of my childhood when we had a TV in the house. As people perceived it as being something "relaxing", when I was ill during that time, it was on for me. I found it gave me horrible headaches from the flickering and I found the shows (and movies) generally depressing and manipulative. I always felt worse, physically and mentally, from watching the TV.
I don't, by the way, think I am judgmental about TV watchers. I think I am making a judgment call on the activity. I have a couple of friends who have been drug addicts (and one who still is). I still call them my friends but I abhor their addiction. (Well, the two in recovery don't do it anymore so I regret their past addiction.)
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| There is fun to be had in TV land. |
I gather there is fun, too, to be had in cocaine country. But I don't visit there.
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| it is tedious for me to come to this forum and see that all the new threads are about TV shows |
and
Quote:
I guess the point is that it's not like I think I'm better at AP or NFL than anyone here. Not by a long shot! But since I don't personally watch tv, seeing a million threads about shows I've never so much as heard of can seem a little boring.
Does that make any sense? It's not a finger in the face saying 'I'm better than you!' it's more like a timid hand being raised in the back of the room and a small voice asking'please, can we discuss something I can relate to? |
This was my main point in starting this thread.
The Forum name is Books, Music and Other Media. The majority of threads these days are about TV shows. I think there should be a separate forum for TV so slower-moving print matter threads don't get buried.
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| Well, if I can ever find the time to actually sit down and read any book uninterrupted, I'll let you know. Until then, it's TV for me |
and
Quote:
| TV keeps me company while I do dishes , fold laundry , or even while I paint clothing. |
But, I can read a book for 5 or ten minutes and then go do something else. I'm really pressed for time and can't spare the 1/2 hour minumum required for a TV show.
If I have to watch some TV (like, I'm over at someone's house who insists on having it on) I need to have something repetitive in my hands to do to keep more of my brain occupied otherwise I go cuckoo. HOWEVER, anything I do while watching TV I do
less well than when I do it
without the TV on. That is, I do things with attention, even menial things like washing dishes, and TV breaks my concentration. I'd rather have my concentration broken by my son wanting to help
and having to keep him from washing the knives.
Quote:
| why not just ignore those threads and start another one about a movie you saw or a book you read? |
and
Quote:
| Why don't you just start threads about something else? |
I have, several times. And I have gone back into the older pages of the Forum to comment on books someone posted about and I only just read or thought about again. And a lot of those threads have been interesting. Daylily has started some good ones (or, I think she started them,
-- apologies if it was someone else) But, those threads, by their very nature of engendering more thought and requiring more thought than those about the electronic babysitter tend to get lost and off the front page awfully quickly. Sometimes in as little as three hours. See this quote:
Quote:
| Anyway, I did try to start a music thread, but it didn't get much traffic. |
I'm not the only one where stuff doesn't get noticed.
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| I think my online time is much more mind numbing than my TV watching |
I couldn't agree with you more.
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| --and I notice you are on here quite a bit. |
Ummmm....well note the date I had time to come back and give all of you the answers I thought the comments merited.
I tend to be on here in spurts. I get on at work when I am forced to sit at my desk and be available to faxes, telephone calls, and e-mails but don't have anything else to do. When I am waiting for someone to give me some information that without I cannot do anything else. Lately, this has been happening. We have a nice, fat telecommunications pipe here and I read really fast (920 words per minute), so I can get a lot of posting done in a very short time.
As soon as I am off this desk assignment (with any luck because we exit Preliminary Engineering and go into Design/Build -- which I always call "Build/Design") -- and am back where I belong -- "down the hole" yelling at contractors over the roar of diesel engines and drills and hoe rams breaking rock -- you won't be seeing me much around here.
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| TV is a common shared experience |
Possibly this
was true in the days of network TV. Less so now with TIVO and taping, etc. Not to mention reruns and local stations that play different stuff.
Quote:
| So we shouldn't discuss TV because you don't relate to it? I don't relate to every thread on MDC and you don't see me popping in, calling them dull, and asking for a topic change. |
I didn't do this, either. I started a separate thread. But, I suppose that people who regard this forum as a TV forum might feel that even a
thread is intrusive as it shares the same Forum with their TV show threads.
:
There have been two times I have popped in and been a little sarcastic on a TV thread. Once was then the OP had phrased the title to, frankly, invite sarcastic responses. The other time was when someone "called" upon me in a funny way to perform an intervention ... and I posted some silly emoticons. I didn't get nasty with anyone on either of those threads. They were jokes and it was clear. Otherwise, as long as I realize that a TV thread is just that, I don't even open the thing.
Quote:
| They would rather watch hockey on tv then actually play |
This is funny! This is actually one of my major pro-sports problems.
:
: I play, and so do many in my extended family. (My grandfather was an amature champion back in Ontario back in the days when they didn't use any protection.
)On any bit of frozen water available, even if it is the driveway. But, we
never watch games unless we get tickets to see it live. And I meet so many people who, when they find out that I play hockey, expect me to have watched all the games.
: And none of the avid hockey-game-watchers I know actually play the sport.
Quote:
| The OP is very passionate about her not having TV in her and her families life. |
But, I hope it doesn't spoil things if I tell you that I don't go into other people's homes and tell them to turn off the TV 'cause I'm there. We do end up accidentally seeing TV shows, or parts thereof, at other's homes. (These snippets only reaffirm my desire to not have it in my home. They are manipulative and show a particular viewpoint that then weakminded people ape and think is the way to act in the real world. Ally McBeal was especially annoying on that score.) And we even sometimes (like once every six or nine months) have movie nights with people where one person will bring an assortment of movies, one brings the food (usually me) and one supplies the TV and comfy chairs and pillows. One particularly successful night was Smoke Signals, Libeled Lady (with Jean Harlow, Spencer Tracy, Myrna Loy and that guy who was in the Thin Man moves) and a homebirth video from my childbirth educator.
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| And it is in line with Mothering philosophy if I'm not mistaken... That's what we're here for, right? |
I thought so.
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| Sometimes I just don't want to use my brain. |
Me, too. But I don't want someone else to use it, either.
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| it was enjoyable to root for or against someone on TV with co-workers. |
I've seen people doing this and it always perplexes me a little
I always felt that was a little meanspirited. I mean, I root for "my" team, but, I don't root
against anyone. I want to see good baseball or hockey or cricket or soccer played regardless of who wins.
:
Quote:
Growing up, Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers were the most educational things ever. To this day, I am a Mr. Rogers fan. His messages today are just as potent as they were 25 years ago when I was little.
T.V. is revolutionary in that there are channels that show you things you may never experience in life, the lives of people you may never meet, and ways of life that you could never fathom. It makes you sympathetic to others, understanding of issues and causes, and widens your imagination...the Discovery Channel. She loves the Animal Channel! |
I disagree with this. When I was at a babysitter's with a television and watched Sesame Street or Mr. Rogers Neighborhood, I found them very limited, even at that age. My parents had a wide variety of friends and acquaintences and I met all of them. I usually accompanied my parents to events (after lots of pre-event training so I behaved appropriately) such as musical performances, political demonstrations, Democratic Committee meetings, Union meetings, Civil Rights Organization meetings, in addition to the daily "rub" of people against each other in life. And actually meeting people, not just relying on superficial pablum. They didn't rely on television to teach me.
On the subject of those nature shows, the vast majority of them are about "exotic" animals. I known many kids in the northeast
in the country or at least suburbia who know all kinds of details about tigers, giraffes, and hippos from hours spent in front of those "educational" shows, but who cannot recognize raccoon tracks, tell the difference between a doe and a buck, nor have ever seen indian pipes. I think we need to look outside our own front doors, first. Those shows are, by the way, just as "produced" as any sitcom. They have been edited for the excitement factor.
I find the emotional and attention-span manipulation that the television producers engage in (and you better believe that they do that...they have the stuff screened by focus groups to make sure they are getting the right response and some people use psychologists to gauge and tweek the manipulation) makes people
less sympathetic to others. It limits stuff to messages easily expressed in a soundbite and reduces the understanding of the nuances of real life give-and-take.
And, frankly, there are always going to be people you didn't meet, places you didn't go, things you never learned even existed. The trick is to learn what you
can and learn it well. Pay attention. As the saying goes, wherever you go, there you are.
But, sad to point out that these two statements seen in juxtaposition
Quote:
| No one needs to feel defensive about watching tv. |
and
Quote:
| but I'm embarrassed to be the first one to admit it. |
say a lot to me. People only generally feel defensive if
they perceive that they are doing something wrong or are under attack. Defensiveness is not the fault of the person pointing something out. Pointing something out is not accusation.
I personally like TV and think in moderation it can be a good thing. I enjoy watching movies, especially when we turn movie-renting into an event, sharing the experience with friends and family. But I too love to read a good book, and notice my days go more smoothly when the TV is limited. So I appreciate both the threads about shows I like, and the threads where people talk about their choices not to have TV in their homes.
I mean, do we really need two threads on the front page about The Apprentice?
T For some reason as a child, I had a big beef with Ohio. I thought it was a horrible, boring state. I used to say it was my least favorite one. I have no idea why I had it in for Ohio. We used to have to drive the Ohio turnpike every year, and I had an older half sister who moved in with us and she was from OH, so maybe that is why. Anyway, this comment reminded me of that. :LOL
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