Same boat, different route
Marko notes that since he no longer has a TeeVee, he’s suffering a near-complete pop culture disconnect. Tam is in the same boat.
I have recently became disconnected from pop culture for a very different reason. I got TiVo. See, now I only watch what I want, when I want to watch it, and without commercials. I’m not exposed to what’s hot. Generally, I have no idea what movies are out (this week is the exception in that I know Madagascar 2 is out because the kids at Junior’s school are into that). I generally have no idea who any of the people are that are mentioned in the Yahoo! entertainment blurb that pops up on the home page. I have no idea who the people on the cover of any magazine at the supermarket are. Marko suffered a disconnect from getting disconnected. I suffered the disconnect by upgrading technology.
I don’t miss it. Most TeeVee sucks. I watch very few shows. A list would include Mythbusters, Battlestar Galactica, Family Guy, The Daily Show (occasionally), My Name Is Earl, Mail Call, Southpark and The Simpsons. That’s really it, except the occasional sporting/poker event. Southpark and The Simpsons are probably coming off the list because lately they suck. Now, I also manage to watch a whole lot of Blues Clues, Spongebob, Dora, Diego, Back at the Barnyard, and Fairly Odd Parents as a function of having kids. But they’re not exactly piping pop culture into the house. Of course, I’ve mentioned before Junior’s utter shock at the discovery of commercials.
Another interesting trend is that, once again because of technology, I can’t name a Top 40 song. No idea. But, then, I’ve never been a big Top 40 guy either. I download my music and pick only what I want to listen to.
I guess you can disconnect or plug in more heavily and become disconnected from pop culture.
November 14th, 2008 at 10:14 am
Mail Call is still on?
November 14th, 2008 at 10:15 am
No new ones in a while. Get canceled?
November 14th, 2008 at 11:11 am
I have to TiVo Michael Bane, Shooting USA, and Guns & Ammo, but my wife and daughter have a monopoly on the TV; my daughter especially. Twelve hours of Dora a day is enough to make anyone crazy, and now I sing that freakin I’m-the-map song all night in my sleep.
November 14th, 2008 at 11:25 am
I do not have a TV either.
I’ve bought a few flat screens for family and friends so I have a good picture to watch when I visit, but that’s it.
I treat TV like the theatre of olde. I go somewhere else for a while and enjoy it, then I leave it behind and get to living my life.
I kinda feel bad for those who have allowed themselves to live a life where they are so very attached to consuming entertainment rather than providing enjoyment (or *gasp* productivity). It will be a curious bedside conversation in 40+ years as they suck in their last breaths asking “Where did my life go?” or “What did I do with my life?”.
Me? I’ll be shaking my head and pointing to the TV they’ll probably still have turned on in their hospital room….
November 14th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
Add Robot Chicken, Always Sunny in Philidelphia, and Good Eats.
I think that SP is still good, but I dropped the Simpsons a long, loooong time ago. And My Name is Earl is genius, although I mentally substitute “Trish” (my aunt) for “Joy” when I watch it.
November 14th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
I unplugged myself from the National Ritalin Tube back in summer of ’05.
The first few months were kind of tough, but it didn’t take long to find other, much more productive and enlightening ways to use up the newly found “free time”.
I often felt the NRT was somehow tied in with our Dumbing Down Institutions (public educmacashun system) and is there primarily as a means to collectively mollify the uneducated (i.e., publically educated) masses and to tell the sheeple how they need to vote.
The recent election has definitely confirmed that belief, at least for me.
November 14th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
Ya know, I forgot. Me and the wife do watch Always Sunny in Philidelphia
November 14th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
People would always ask me “How do you read so many books?” Even when I was pulling down seven-day weeks at CCA, I’d be chewing through two or three a week.
Not that one form of entertainment is superior to another, but when folks talk about the joys of TiVO (“No commercials! You can pause it and come back to it!“), I can’t help but think that, well, you could always do that with books. 😉
November 14th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
y’know, for a kiddie show, the fairly odd parents are pretty funny… just sayin’
November 14th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
We don’t have TV either. We watch a handful of shows online (usually catching up in little binges, because we forget to watch regularly) and I can honestly say I don’t miss having the one in the living room hooked up to service.
I’ve also noticed a disconnect from pop culture, though, as in I normally have NO IDEA what is going on.
November 14th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
When I was traveling for work (a period of about 2 years), I made it a point not to have a TV in my “road” apartment, on the premise that if I had a TV, I’d just sit around and watch TV all the time. It was amazing how liberating it was, and how much I didn’t miss it. The still-eerie side effect was that I was on the road when the 9/11 attacks happened, and didn’t have a TV. So I listened to the coverage on the radio, and that was it. It wasn’t until the wee hours of 9/16 that I actually saw any footage of what had happened. By that time, everyone else was already desensitized to it, and I was mesmerized (and, as I recall, PSHing in a way that I didn’t in the days immediately following the attacks).
Now, of course, I’ve got TiVo*, and I’ve got a lot of Uncle’s issues. Not having kids, I don’t have to deal with the kids shows, but I do have a wife, so I do have to deal with Dancing With The Stars (I tell myself I’m watching it for the hot female professional dancers, of which there are several, but I secretly actually enjoy that shit…).
Apart from that, here’s what I watch regularly:
– The Daily Show
– The Colbert Report
– The News Hour
– Frontline
– Nova
– Mythbusters
– Good Eats
– Two And A Half Men
– Family Guy
– Landscaper’s Challenge
– Mexico: One Plate At A Time
– The Graham Norton Show
– Boston Legal (occasionally)
– Sporting events (Packers, Maple Leafs, Brewers, Badgers football/basketball)
If your TiVo list tells you something about yourself, I guess it tells me that I’m a nerd, something I already knew. Notice that with a couple of exceptions, almost no pop culture to be found there.
* – I have the crappy old DirecTV TiVo, which is still worlds better than the crappy new proprietary DirecTV DVR. Fortunately, DirecTV has recently re-entered into a contract with TiVo, so a newer, better, HD-ready TiVo should be available for DirecTV subscribers some time in 2009, at which time I’ll be forced to upgrade my entire home theater system, the newest component of which was purchased in approximately 1994.
November 14th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
R Lee has a new show on, and i think it’s on tonight.
It’s “lock n’ Load” and it’s on at 9pm EST
November 14th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
Oh yeah, and it’s about guns!
November 14th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
TiVo is my friend. Mythbusters, Battlestar Galactica (when it comes back), Terminator (the new series), Good Eats, Whose Line, Little People Big World (Better Half’s thing, but it is mildly interesting), House, and Smallville (my one vice) is about it for me, though.