TV

I’m not the type to support drives to “smash your TV!” for some vague political notion or concern about family values. I wouldn’t put the idea on a bumper sticker or T-shirt. But in my personal dealings, TV is, in general, a negative influence.

It depends, of course, on the drive behind turning on the TV. The lowest of the low is channel-surfing. If you take it one channel at a time, you get tiny slices of whatever content is presented. Enough to keep you from thinking, and not enough to cause you to think. If you simply check your favorite stations with nothing in mind, you are the victim of demography. Giving anything on MTV a chance homogenizes you into any 15-25 year old. Likewise with BET, or any other network. Even if you are playing against your type, you are still confined to a narrow set of tastes and ideals. The only form of excusable TV-watching is to watch particular show or movie you enjoy. If you know exactly what you want to watch beforehand, and turn it off when it’s over, It’s not much different than a DVD, besides of course the inclusion of advertisements.

And I wouldn’t downplay the effect of advertisements. Caught yourself thinking of a jingle to an insurance company instead of a song with merit? Me too. At this point, you can tell idiots apart from decent people by wether they think this is a good or bad thing, respectively. Many people will, while watching commercials, take stabs at the logical inconsistencies in them. Regardless of their wild rebellion to what they are clearly controlled by, advertisements work. Even if you thought that Tide bleach pen commercial was fucking lame, you’ll think of it when you spill your coffee tomorrow.

The final undesirable consequence of TV watching is a neglect of other forms of entertainment. I’ve always been some kind of entertainer. I may entertain very few, but I’d find a few more fans if they weren’t watching flava of love 55. Call me bitter and biased, but I don’t think every form of entertainment is best presented on TV. It’s not the gold standard for an entertainers worth. Nor is the internet. Occasionally real life is even entertaining. If you kinda like that rap video you saw on TV, you’ll probably really like some local rappers. Look them up. If you like a movie of something that was originally a play, see the play. There is a large world of entertainment and thought outside of a small(even if it’s big) screen.

The only solace I have is that more and more people my age and younger are turning that shit off. With the advent of a more entertaining internet(which I’d like to be a part of), DVDs and downloading, and general programming-fatigue, things tend to be taking a turn for the better. So don’t “smash your TV!”, just sell it.