adimon
16-10-2007, 02:46 AM
EDIT: People can vote for more than one reason if applicable.
Please see what I have to say below, and then let me know if my views are similar to yours, or if you disagree etc, and if you could complete my poll I'd be very grateful. It was hard to create the options for the poll, but I figure (and hope) that anyone interested in responding will explain all in their post too! :)
~
Personally, I don't watch broadcast TV at all anymore, and haven't done for around 3 years. Prior to that I had a 'dwindling period' where I watched between 1 and 10 hours a month. Before that, I watched a fair bit, including a period when I lived with a soap-addicted ex-girlfriend, where we'd watch soap from 6pm til 9pm every day. Evil.
Anyway...in the end...
1. Even with the several hundred channels available on the Sky Digital system, I was hardly ever able to find anything that I actually 'wanted' to watch. Sometimes I found myself watching something just because it was on, and I was sat down. I later decided this was fundamentally wrong - I would never go into a library and waste my time reading a shit book just because I was there, so why do it with visual information?
2. The kind of programs I used to enjoy watching as a kid have been completely marginalised. Programs to do with science/mysteries/alternative viewpoints/interesting people - e.g. Rasputin, or the darker side of history - e.g. French Inquisition are very small in number now. I know there are some channels with more solely-science programs, but overall they are quite banal, unoriginal, and not really covering anything new. I know there is National Geographic etc, but this seems to be mainly animals and I'm not big into animals at all.
3. The effect of TV on my peers, and the generations either side of mine, is extremely worrying to me, now that I have had a chance to observe these effects from the standpoint of an avid-viewer, a dwindling-viewer, and a non-viewer.
i) Firstly, the sheer amount of time most people spend watching the TV. I'm not going to quote any studies or statistics, but from what I can see, most people I know watch 2-6 hours a day.
ii) Some of these same people complain that they don't have enough time for other things, like exercise, or going out and meeting people. This is not only untrue, but the thing which is making them lose health and die earlier.
iii) Next, not only do people spend ridiculous amounts of time WATCHING, but I wouldn't mind betting that one of the main conversation topics between friends is TV.
SAMPLE CONVERSATION:
Bill: Did you watch Harry Enfield last night?
Bob: Yes
Bill: What about that bit where he....
Does anyone else think that maybe, in general, people 25-30 years ago went to a bit more effort to find out about their friends' lives and help one another get along?
iv) If I was to tell you that if you were to go down the road and look through the front window of No. 7, that you could watch the whole goings on in their house, and see them talking, eating, sleeping etc. would you give a shit?
So why do even some of my most switched-on, otherwise-intelligent and even anti-capitalist friends bother to sit down in front of Big Brother? Is it just because No.7 is now on TV? Or because they fill the BB house with what they hope will be attractive people? Jesus, I can't stand clubbing, but that's where I'd head if I wanted to find attractive people for purely aesthetic reasons.
4. As a non-viewer, if I go round my friends to hang out for the day or visit for a few days, they know that if they wanna watch Eastenders or House or anything else that I don't, then I will leave the room, and either do some exercise (if I have the energy) or go read something informative to me...or, miracle-of-miracles, I occasionally find someone else who has the same view and we carve out a conversation that we wouldn't normally have had. What a bonus!
5. Sometime, earlier-on in my boycott of TV, I found some anti-TV websites (WhiteDot etc) and there are two points I remember which have stayed impressed in my memory, and I'd like to share them with you (apologies if you've heard them before). They are paraphrased, not word for word.
i) If you were to travel back in time to the 1800s and tell them that in 100-150 years time, people from all walks of life would spend several hours a day unmoving, staring at a box of metal and plastic and glass, would they not maybe have thought that idea sounded like a sci-fi horror film, a la "The Day The Earth Sat Still" ?
ii) The program 'Friends' is one of the most popular and successful shows of all time. The creators obviously found a range of characters broad enough that most people would identify to a certain degree. The title, the cheery nature of the show, the jangly theme tune, and the dual comedy/drama nature of it - e.g. shitjokes and bad dramatic acting - all ensured it's place as a universal favourite that, in fairness, nearly everyone liked. The point I want to impress is about the irony of the situation - the viewer associating themselves with the show, identifying and caring about what happens to the characters ("I cant believe Rachel is marrying Joey and not Ross!") and 'feeling a part' of the group of friends; when in reality, the viewer is isolated from the real world of real friends because they are in their living room in their crap house in Manchester, not a plush town house in NYC hanging out with the gang. 'Friends' couldn't be a more ironic title. Do you think Matt le Blanc cares if your mum has cancer, or you had a miscarriage? So what do you care if 'Joey' suffers a family loss, or gets AIDS? Which leads me on to...
6. In defence of TV, especially in defence of soaps, I always hear the idea that they bring topical or important issues to people's awareness. But what issues? Whose awareness? What knock-on effect does this have? Is it measurable? Soaps are certainly not realistic otherwise the characters would all be talking about TV and football. And you wouldn't get an annual death rate of 3 for a road with 7 houses on it. As for so-called reality shows, I couldn't think of anything less real and more contrived. Reality TV gives reality a bad name.
7. I'm not proposing censorship or restrictions on TV to combat the evil I think it represents, btw, I'm just keen for people to do more of the other things they could do with their time - like exercise, private study, household organisation, sex or simply rest.
8. I can watch the few films and documentaries that I want to, on the Internet, or buy them on DVD/download them, and watch them at my convenience. This way I only watch when I actually want to watch, and I watch only what I want to watch. I can find out about new shows and docus through the Internet, and other people, then buy or download if I want to.
For example, I REALLY REALLY like 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' but have never tuned in to watch it. A friend lent me the First Series on DVD, and I liked it so much, I went out and bought all the others. 'Curb' Series 6 is now showing on HBO, and I'm keen to find out what the new series is like, but I'm not keen on the necessary hassle to find out which provider beams HBO to the UK, and hey it's only a show, I can wait.
Plus I dont have a TV. :D
9. If broadcast entertainment is to stick around, either in the form of TV, or as direct broadcast from the internet (as I think it will become), I'd like to see a more customer-focused, choice-based, open system. How about a situation where every channel is subscription-based, so you only have to pay for what you watch, and no more, and channels could set their charges per week, month, one-off, whatever, so the whole system would be governed by the laws of the free-market, and a channel that deemed to charge too much for its service would suffer, and be forced to address their fee in order to survive.
I think such a system would also encourage more channels to think twice about ditching 'The World at War' in favour of 'When Dogs Go Mad'.
10. I'd like to say finally that I don't believe the existence or the development of TV is an Illuminati plot to subdue. I think that the corporate world uses it very well as a tool to sell, and part of that selling involves 'lulling' for want of a better word, but I think the reason more controversial CT-type programs aren't shown on TV is because of popularity and the difficulty in finding funding for minority interests in the first place, not part of a larger agenda.
Thank you for your patience and interest. :)
Please see what I have to say below, and then let me know if my views are similar to yours, or if you disagree etc, and if you could complete my poll I'd be very grateful. It was hard to create the options for the poll, but I figure (and hope) that anyone interested in responding will explain all in their post too! :)
~
Personally, I don't watch broadcast TV at all anymore, and haven't done for around 3 years. Prior to that I had a 'dwindling period' where I watched between 1 and 10 hours a month. Before that, I watched a fair bit, including a period when I lived with a soap-addicted ex-girlfriend, where we'd watch soap from 6pm til 9pm every day. Evil.
Anyway...in the end...
1. Even with the several hundred channels available on the Sky Digital system, I was hardly ever able to find anything that I actually 'wanted' to watch. Sometimes I found myself watching something just because it was on, and I was sat down. I later decided this was fundamentally wrong - I would never go into a library and waste my time reading a shit book just because I was there, so why do it with visual information?
2. The kind of programs I used to enjoy watching as a kid have been completely marginalised. Programs to do with science/mysteries/alternative viewpoints/interesting people - e.g. Rasputin, or the darker side of history - e.g. French Inquisition are very small in number now. I know there are some channels with more solely-science programs, but overall they are quite banal, unoriginal, and not really covering anything new. I know there is National Geographic etc, but this seems to be mainly animals and I'm not big into animals at all.
3. The effect of TV on my peers, and the generations either side of mine, is extremely worrying to me, now that I have had a chance to observe these effects from the standpoint of an avid-viewer, a dwindling-viewer, and a non-viewer.
i) Firstly, the sheer amount of time most people spend watching the TV. I'm not going to quote any studies or statistics, but from what I can see, most people I know watch 2-6 hours a day.
ii) Some of these same people complain that they don't have enough time for other things, like exercise, or going out and meeting people. This is not only untrue, but the thing which is making them lose health and die earlier.
iii) Next, not only do people spend ridiculous amounts of time WATCHING, but I wouldn't mind betting that one of the main conversation topics between friends is TV.
SAMPLE CONVERSATION:
Bill: Did you watch Harry Enfield last night?
Bob: Yes
Bill: What about that bit where he....
Does anyone else think that maybe, in general, people 25-30 years ago went to a bit more effort to find out about their friends' lives and help one another get along?
iv) If I was to tell you that if you were to go down the road and look through the front window of No. 7, that you could watch the whole goings on in their house, and see them talking, eating, sleeping etc. would you give a shit?
So why do even some of my most switched-on, otherwise-intelligent and even anti-capitalist friends bother to sit down in front of Big Brother? Is it just because No.7 is now on TV? Or because they fill the BB house with what they hope will be attractive people? Jesus, I can't stand clubbing, but that's where I'd head if I wanted to find attractive people for purely aesthetic reasons.
4. As a non-viewer, if I go round my friends to hang out for the day or visit for a few days, they know that if they wanna watch Eastenders or House or anything else that I don't, then I will leave the room, and either do some exercise (if I have the energy) or go read something informative to me...or, miracle-of-miracles, I occasionally find someone else who has the same view and we carve out a conversation that we wouldn't normally have had. What a bonus!
5. Sometime, earlier-on in my boycott of TV, I found some anti-TV websites (WhiteDot etc) and there are two points I remember which have stayed impressed in my memory, and I'd like to share them with you (apologies if you've heard them before). They are paraphrased, not word for word.
i) If you were to travel back in time to the 1800s and tell them that in 100-150 years time, people from all walks of life would spend several hours a day unmoving, staring at a box of metal and plastic and glass, would they not maybe have thought that idea sounded like a sci-fi horror film, a la "The Day The Earth Sat Still" ?
ii) The program 'Friends' is one of the most popular and successful shows of all time. The creators obviously found a range of characters broad enough that most people would identify to a certain degree. The title, the cheery nature of the show, the jangly theme tune, and the dual comedy/drama nature of it - e.g. shitjokes and bad dramatic acting - all ensured it's place as a universal favourite that, in fairness, nearly everyone liked. The point I want to impress is about the irony of the situation - the viewer associating themselves with the show, identifying and caring about what happens to the characters ("I cant believe Rachel is marrying Joey and not Ross!") and 'feeling a part' of the group of friends; when in reality, the viewer is isolated from the real world of real friends because they are in their living room in their crap house in Manchester, not a plush town house in NYC hanging out with the gang. 'Friends' couldn't be a more ironic title. Do you think Matt le Blanc cares if your mum has cancer, or you had a miscarriage? So what do you care if 'Joey' suffers a family loss, or gets AIDS? Which leads me on to...
6. In defence of TV, especially in defence of soaps, I always hear the idea that they bring topical or important issues to people's awareness. But what issues? Whose awareness? What knock-on effect does this have? Is it measurable? Soaps are certainly not realistic otherwise the characters would all be talking about TV and football. And you wouldn't get an annual death rate of 3 for a road with 7 houses on it. As for so-called reality shows, I couldn't think of anything less real and more contrived. Reality TV gives reality a bad name.
7. I'm not proposing censorship or restrictions on TV to combat the evil I think it represents, btw, I'm just keen for people to do more of the other things they could do with their time - like exercise, private study, household organisation, sex or simply rest.
8. I can watch the few films and documentaries that I want to, on the Internet, or buy them on DVD/download them, and watch them at my convenience. This way I only watch when I actually want to watch, and I watch only what I want to watch. I can find out about new shows and docus through the Internet, and other people, then buy or download if I want to.
For example, I REALLY REALLY like 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' but have never tuned in to watch it. A friend lent me the First Series on DVD, and I liked it so much, I went out and bought all the others. 'Curb' Series 6 is now showing on HBO, and I'm keen to find out what the new series is like, but I'm not keen on the necessary hassle to find out which provider beams HBO to the UK, and hey it's only a show, I can wait.
Plus I dont have a TV. :D
9. If broadcast entertainment is to stick around, either in the form of TV, or as direct broadcast from the internet (as I think it will become), I'd like to see a more customer-focused, choice-based, open system. How about a situation where every channel is subscription-based, so you only have to pay for what you watch, and no more, and channels could set their charges per week, month, one-off, whatever, so the whole system would be governed by the laws of the free-market, and a channel that deemed to charge too much for its service would suffer, and be forced to address their fee in order to survive.
I think such a system would also encourage more channels to think twice about ditching 'The World at War' in favour of 'When Dogs Go Mad'.
10. I'd like to say finally that I don't believe the existence or the development of TV is an Illuminati plot to subdue. I think that the corporate world uses it very well as a tool to sell, and part of that selling involves 'lulling' for want of a better word, but I think the reason more controversial CT-type programs aren't shown on TV is because of popularity and the difficulty in finding funding for minority interests in the first place, not part of a larger agenda.
Thank you for your patience and interest. :)