television: c or d

Seriously, stop being a poseur.

Terrifying.

But I cannot honestly say that I feel any less content when I have a television (and dvd/vcr - does that change the question?)

-there are things to deride and make yourself feel superficial superior by, e.g. local news, "So You Think You Can Dance"

-there are good demonstrations of how to not raise children, "Nanny 911," "Malibu Princes"

fuck. . .those are all Fox show aren't they? And Murdoch is a conservative cocksucking cunt even if his son is hot isn't he? damnit.

well I'll just resort to a simple TV is CLASSIC! - Here's my POV:

The Simpsons
X-Files
Six Feet Under
Law and Order(s)
King of the Hill

And I know you don't agree with me but I don't want to hear it so kiss my butt!

dont we have enough bad garu G impostors already, leeeeeeee?

if i had a pvr i might like it more

When I taught I always graded to TV (usually skate videos - hott)

Now I crochet and knit to them.

Whatever I never sit still and just watch. but the computer takes all your attention and motor skills.

The internet's a vampire slut, watch it boyo!

I was wondering the other night: is American TV the best TV in the world? At least in terms of production values, all I can think of that comes close to American TV (and that I've been exposed to) is British TV. (UK TV also has been crucial in the reality tv movement (and Australia too, for their love of ballroom).)

And US TV gets exported more often than non-US TV gets imported into the US (has a lot to do with American/Western culture as fascination to the non-US).

Certainly, no non-US show creates a zeitgeist on a par with Sopranos or Shield, or if it does, it remains confined to within the native country. But from frequenting certain TV-related boards which I shall forget to name, there seem to be a rather large number of non-American fans of shows like Alias and Top Model as well, more so than fans of a German tv show, let's say.

within three months our outlooks had begun to shift a little. if we found ourselves in a hotel or at a friend's where the tv was on, we'd watch for a little while and then get really bored really fast. we are glad to be largely rid of it and there's nothing snob about it! it just really is a sort of pabulum, and when we were weaned of it we wondered how it ever satisfied us.

I'm being a little facetious, I admit it. I think American TV for better or worse (ok, worse, who are we kidding?) has influnced society more. British TV might have hit less often but when it does hit, it's a a fucking spot on hit.

but no leeee I'm not directly taking a potshot at you. more so at the "kill your TV" crowd. And trust me, there's a lot of those types in Austin, TX. They made a million off they're tech IPO and now live on the Colorado off-the-grid, they homeschool and simply have no place for pedestrian television.

FUCK THAT.

there are people like me out in the *real* world ready to chew up and spit they're little priveleged hippied children out.

Did I feel depreived without TV? ultimately, no. but other, equally destructive things like the Internet, took it's place. I'm not going to lie.

but truly. . .I don't know if you can get cable where I live w/out sucking Murdoch's dick. isn't that sad?

The usual argument on this problem is that every television comes equiped with an off-switch and if you don't want to watch, you can use it. The barb is that, once you've sunk into mindless passivity, it is a self-perpetuating state. Turning the blasted thing off requires a measure of initiative and initiative is precisely what TV kills in you.

This trap is bad enough when it wastes one night of your life. If you allow it to take over many consecutive nights, it can swallow you whole.

you know........

down there.

ILX can also be a time-sink of huge proportions and it is possible to approach it in a fairly mindless way, just tossing off the first three or five words that pop into your head and hitting 'Submit', or lurking in the same way that others channel-surf a TV. However, it is also possible to approach ILX in a more thoughtful and 'writerly' way. The most interesting ILXors all do this.

I suppose it is possible to be a mentally active and alert TV viewer. The ILXors who manage this all seem to take film and television as an art form and watch them in a very engaged and creative frame of mind, imagining themselves as the directors or producers, rather than identifying themselves with the actors or with the characters presented.

This is a relatively rare way to watch TV, but it would tend to mitigate some of the passivity that is TV's worst trait.

There is plenty of stuff on TV I do like, but I always forget to watch it. Plus I have basic (~20 channel) cable so some of it I can't watch unless I'm somewhere else.

but i generally find that I MUCH prefer a great television show to a good movie

whaaaat! I just can't get into/excited about TV shows, I feel like there isn't nearly as much "there" as when I'm watching a good film. Maybe I'm not looking in the right places.

gunther, don't apologize for your tastes, esp. when it comes to TV shows. Unless of course you revel in as much trashy reality as I do.

I just can't get into/excited about TV shows, I feel like there isn't nearly as much "there" as when I'm watching a good film.

It's funny that you use "there" because in a different sense of the word, TV is all about making the viewer "there," not just in space but in time. I think one of the appeals to TV is that it creates a sense of a disembodied but collective community with other watchers -- "watchers" meaning people who actively seek out a certain show that airs at a certain time of a certain day of the week, not the steretypical passive viewer. Once a long time ago, I was a passive watcher, but I think that the Internet has supplanted TV as the passively absorptive medium, and so I've since been able to approach TV with a much more novelistic/cinematic mindset -- watching for specific shows, not to zone out. It's telling that to surf can apply to both the Internet and TV.

Classic.

haha, nah I didn't mean to say you have bad taste or anything -- I can't logically/critically defend most of my (probably poor) taste either. I do think the extra time/money/consideration that goes into films can (at times) yield some really awesome work though that I can't generally find in the television world. Like basically I can watch a movie and be really blown away, but not so much with TV (the obvious counter-argument being: do we really want to be "blown away" everytime we sit down in front of a screen? probably not).

Lee makes good points too, and I totally understand (and value) the feeling of collective community -- which is one reason DVDs of TV shows don't genearlly appeal to me at all.

That's all a bit rushed/incomplete, i've gotta run though

tv, like anything, is 90% rubbish. there's 10% good stuff there but if you do nothing but watch, for instance, the endless friends repeats on ch4 then you've only yourself to blame. PVRs help a lot. but even then i was stuck for something decent to watch last night so i just turned it off and went and did something else (read ilx, digitised this week's vinyl purchases)

However, I do tend to notice how much I get *done* when I turn the thing off for a day. Sigh.

I find it very hard to do nothing *but* watch television, unless it's something that requires active concentration like Dr. Who or something. However, it's very easy for me to veg out with the television on, pretending I'm busy when really I'm reading (or more likely writing) trash.

i've not watched any soaps for months tho, i think i've kicked that habbit.

give me a late night movie over anything else anyday, all cozy curled up in bed.

OTM. Most of my friends are critical of television, but no one goes around blaming people for watching it, I guess because everyone know how appealing the lure of TV is.

It's a complicated issue... I think TV is good for nullifying your brain, and everyone needs to do that once in a while. However, as someone pointed out upthread, TV tends to trap you into it's zone and keep your brain nullified for far longer than would be necessary. I remember reading about comparative studies done on how people spent their free time before and after the age of television; before, there used to be neighbourhood clubs, singing at the pub, all sorts of social activity, but TV has diminished this quite much. I guess it's just too easy, when you come home from work, to sit on the couch and open the telly rather than call your friends or something. Lee mentioned imagined communities - I think they can be sort of dangerous too, because unlike movies or book, TV gives you a virtual set of family and friends you can visit week after week, and I think this can create the same sorta feeling of safety as real friends and family do, but obviously it's not and shouldn't be the same thing. Back when I had a TV, I remember one time I was sitting in a pub with friends, and then I suddenly realized, "Omigod, Buffy is on in 40 minutes, if I leave for home now I can still catch it!". Then I stopped to think: are my "friends" in TV really more important than my real friends sitting next to me? The real friends won.

I gave up my TV set four years ago, not as a conscious anti-TV act, but because I wasn't watching it much anyway, and friend of mine happened to need one, so I thought she had more use for it than me. I haven't really missed it. I probably spend more time hanging around with friends and doing social stuff than when I had TV. Like everyone, I have times when I don't want see everyone and not really use my brain for anything complicated, but instead of TV I spend that time reading light books or comics. The good thing about books is that you can always stop reading them, should a friend call and ask you for a pint or something, and return to them later on. Books don't trap you in their zone like TV does. So while I think television has it's function, it has definitely overstepped it's functionality and become harmful to human interaction.

i think this is just a function of scheduling - ie you have to be there at a certain time for buffy, 'real' friends aren't only available between 18:00 and 18:45 on fridays. a Tivo, or similar, kinda frees you from this stuff (except when there's a clash like tonight) but also alienates you from those water cooler moments / discussion threads the day after.

(that said, i'm the kind of person who given the choice between watching something decent on tv or sitting in a stinky pub watching friends get drunk for five hours will often choose the tv 8)

I actually gave up WATCHING A JARED HARRIS FILM ON THE TV last night to go and hang out and watch my friends play a gig and drink. (Plus, I have given up watching Coast twice in the past week for friends.)

But then again, I kind of have a sort of pseudo-crush on the guitarist of my friends' band and IRL horn will usually win out over TV horn.

I should just get a VCR or Tivo or something, but I know me, if I had such things on tape, I'd just watch them over and over and over and freezeframe certain moments and then I'd never leave the house.

(disclaimer: we dont have Tivo etc here)

Also, with DVDs and PVRs (and VCRs to a lesser extent), TV has begun to move more towards novelistic reception that frees it from the live temporality that otherwise characterizes broadcast (and to a lesser extent cable (because of its tendency to re-air shows)). That is, people are more likely to seek and single out a specific program to watch, with more monolithic narratives (i.e. no commercial interruptions; think of a serialized story, appearing first in a magazine with ads, and then in book form). And although I've noticed a tendency in DVD owners (myself included) to watch multiple episodes in a row, which might seem like the same veg-out phenomenon as before, I'd prefer to see it as analagous to being engrossed in a good novel.

Thus, the two general TV-viewing trends, as I see it, include:

1. the usual (stereotypical?) ambient/mindnumbing TV viewing.
2. the novelistic viewing, which despite cleaving this sort of viewer from the shared temporality of "live" TV, still maintains a connection to the fan community, esp. through the commodification of programs.

not in britain they don't

Network tv in the US is f'in annoying.

As for scheduling one's life around the broadcast times of TV, that happens with films as well (e.g. "Hurry up or we'll be late to film x!"), though of course to a far lesser degree.

:/

what a load of fucking shit
― undo, Saturday, August 20, 2005

i was already going to vote, we have the music one this week lol

fp him. let's make an example

please allocate all my points to DUD