# Agree or disagree: Writers are bad at being original because they grew up watching TV **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 21, 2016, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agree-or-disagree-writers-are-bad-at-being-original-because-they-grew-up-watching-tv/763570 "2016-08-21T22:17:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Donegal\_Dragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e47774/32.png) [@Donegal\_Dragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Donegal_Dragon)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2016, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agree-or-disagree-writers-are-bad-at-being-original-because-they-grew-up-watching-tv/763570/21 "2016-08-22T17:17:49Z")
> [@Go\_Arachnid\_Laser](#): > > Were they? Were people watching I love Lucy or Flipper to expand their horizons? More than people watching Breaking Bad or The Wire? > > I don’t know about pessimism, but you may be suffering from rose-tinted nostalgia. I guess I’m a good bit older because I Love Lucy and Flipper are not exactly “the old days” for me. I guess I was referring to earlier forms of storytelling. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2016, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agree-or-disagree-writers-are-bad-at-being-original-because-they-grew-up-watching-tv/763570/22 "2016-08-22T17:36:02Z")
> [@Donegal\_Dragon](#): > > I must agree. The uses for creative writing have changed. Stories on television, movies, books used to be for expansion of experience. > [@Donegal\_Dragon](#): > > I guess I’m a good bit older because I Love Lucy and Flipper are not exactly “the old days” for me. I guess I was referring to earlier forms of storytelling. When exactly? Can you name names? ---
**Author:** ![Go\_Arachnid\_Laser\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b2d939/32.png) [@Go\_Arachnid\_Laser\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Go_Arachnid_Laser_1)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2016, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agree-or-disagree-writers-are-bad-at-being-original-because-they-grew-up-watching-tv/763570/23 "2016-08-22T18:03:51Z")
> [@Donegal\_Dragon](#): > > I guess I’m a good bit older because I Love Lucy and Flipper are not exactly “the old days” for me. I guess I was referring to earlier forms of storytelling. Flash Gordon? The Captain and the Kids? ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2016, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agree-or-disagree-writers-are-bad-at-being-original-because-they-grew-up-watching-tv/763570/24 "2016-08-22T18:24:00Z")
I agree that there a plenty of original writers around. The issue lies with the producer/studio side of things. They want “safe” ideas. And their concept of “safe” is copying something successful. So creative writers have a choice: either grind out trite scripts or find another job. Eventually, the writers who are the best at grinding out rehashed episodes of _I Love Lucy_ dominate. Things are changing though, with Amazon and Netflix’s production models working somewhat differently. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2016, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agree-or-disagree-writers-are-bad-at-being-original-because-they-grew-up-watching-tv/763570/25 "2016-08-22T18:48:28Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > I agree that there a plenty of original writers around. The issue lies with the producer/studio side of things. They want “safe” ideas. And their concept of “safe” is copying something successful. So creative writers have a choice: either grind out trite scripts or find another job. Eventually, the writers who are the best at grinding out rehashed episodes of _I Love Lucy_ dominate. > > Things are changing though, with Amazon and Netflix’s production models working somewhat differently. I think you’re right- Hollywood (or whatever the TV equivalent is) is a weird combination of risk-averse and risk-enthusiastic. It’s like they only sort of know what people like, and are throwing stuff at the wall and hoping it sticks a lot of the time. Or maybe they know what people like, but don’t have any actual clues as to WHY, so they throw superficially similar stuff at the wall in the same fashion. Lots of the remakes don’t work at all, and the ones that do, they don’t seem to know why. So they’ve found that putting lipstick AND rouge on the same old pig seems to work better than anything else, so that’s what they do. Hence the number of functionally identical sit-coms and other TV shows. I’d bet the writers are not as uncreative as you suspect. They’re likely more the equivalent of a trained chef working as a line cook; competent at doing what they’re told, capable of much more, but rarely allowed out of their box to actually do it. ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2016, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agree-or-disagree-writers-are-bad-at-being-original-because-they-grew-up-watching-tv/763570/26 "2016-08-23T02:45:38Z")
What’s special about TV? Might as well say writers are bad at being original because they grew up reading books. When people complain about lack of originality I want them to be specific. What was the last original story? What are they complaining about, exactly? ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2016, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agree-or-disagree-writers-are-bad-at-being-original-because-they-grew-up-watching-tv/763570/27 "2016-08-23T04:18:23Z")
TV draws our especial ire because it was so deadline-driven. The creators didn’t have the time to be creative. They sucked up whatever meme was floating on the surface. Comic books have this problem: everything has to be done on a terribly tight schedule. I’m astonished how much real creativity there is in comics, given these restrictions. And, yeah, old time radio was also bad, because of tight deadlines and their reliance on cheap, easily-copied ideas. Most books, thank Ghu, aren’t written to tight deadlines. (And the ones that are, tend to suffer from it.) ---
**Author:** ![Go\_Arachnid\_Laser\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b2d939/32.png) [@Go\_Arachnid\_Laser\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Go_Arachnid_Laser_1)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2016, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agree-or-disagree-writers-are-bad-at-being-original-because-they-grew-up-watching-tv/763570/28 "2016-08-23T06:39:18Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Most books, thank Ghu, aren’t written to tight deadlines. (And the ones that are, tend to suffer from it.) And yet publishing houses are not immune to chasing the dragon of whatever’s trending. Far from it. Would you believe that about 98% of all horror books published in the last five years are about zombies? Have you noticed how the number of female-written thrillers has spiked drastically since Gone Girl? Remember a couple years back, when it looked like about half of every new book published was part of a YA trilogy set in a dystopian future? Media trends have been a thing since Guttenberg published his first book (a surefire, tried and tested best seller, of course) and have become more obvious this century since the amount of data marketing companies have nowadays has increased exponentially with things like social media. ---
**Author:** ![OHS201](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/6de8d8/32.png) [@OHS201](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OHS201)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2016, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agree-or-disagree-writers-are-bad-at-being-original-because-they-grew-up-watching-tv/763570/29 "2016-08-28T14:02:14Z")
I don’t know if it’s the writers, so much as the producers and the money-men. Those with the big bux invested tend to rely on something that’s been successful before, hence so much remake and imitation. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2016, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agree-or-disagree-writers-are-bad-at-being-original-because-they-grew-up-watching-tv/763570/30 "2016-08-28T20:24:31Z")
> [@drewder](#): > > Title says it all. It’s something my mother, who grew up during ww2 and was a writer would always say was that writers today are not as original as writers of the past because they grow up watching TV. Do you agree or disagree and why? I disagree because the premise is stupid? Sorry, I don’t mean to slam your mom. But really? It’s simply dumb and limited in perspective on its face. Not sure what else to say. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2016, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agree-or-disagree-writers-are-bad-at-being-original-because-they-grew-up-watching-tv/763570/31 "2016-08-28T23:29:14Z")
Which show has the worst or most unoriginal writers? -Breaking Bad -Mad Men -Game of Thrones -House of Cards -Battlestar Galactica -Sons of Anarchy -Fargo -Archer -Homeland -Mr Robot -Penny Dreadful -Hannibal -The Newsroom -The Walking Dead -Orange is the New Black ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2016, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agree-or-disagree-writers-are-bad-at-being-original-because-they-grew-up-watching-tv/763570/32 "2016-08-29T04:41:18Z")
Nope. Entirely the opposite. Creativity requires exposure to ideas. What we call originality is just a new way of putting together different older ideas. Television allows for faster exposure to said ideas, as new stuff is always coming in. It tells new stories in shorter periods of time. The Internet, of course, did a lot more for creativity. It gave more exposure, and removed any criteria for publishing. Not the long process needed to make and vet a physical book, nor the shorter process for a TV show. Still, probably the greatest factor is just access to more ideas to start with. The more ideas that have already been done, the more creative we can be. You do run into superficial similarities just by chance, but people still consider the results original. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/agree-or-disagree-writers-are-bad-at-being-original-because-they-grew-up-watching-tv/763570.md?page=1)