# Do you think people who don't watch TV are braggarts/snobs?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-people-who-dont-watch-tv-are-braggarts-snobs/647970
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [January 22, 2013, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-people-who-dont-watch-tv-are-braggarts-snobs/647970 "2013-01-22T02:01:14Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 6
### Author:  [@gracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gracer)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2013, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-people-who-dont-watch-tv-are-braggarts-snobs/647970/101 "2013-01-23T00:58:50Z")
Maybe I am a snob, I dunno.
I don’t have a tv. Like in the example up thread of teh nasty evil snob, I got rid of a tv I was given. I don’t watch tv, I don’t think it comes into the house, why would I store a big television? Another reason we don’t have one: they’re so ugly. I don’t want an ugly big thing in my house. Maybe that makes me a snob. Probably does.
And yeah, I think just about everything on it is shit. There’s a South Park episode\* where all the music the kids hear suddenly sounds like shit. That’s what it’s like: 99% of all music and all television and all film is like someone farting in my face. Just obnoxious. I prefer it if is not there. There is good stuff, and I will watch some of it. Okidoke.
If you like it, watch tv. But I fail to understand why I am such a terrible person for daring to say out loud I don’t have one, and then explaining why. Maybe I should go around pretending I do have a tv and that I did watch that thing about boobies and fighting last night, just to accommodate the feelings of the poor souls who won’t like me for being such a radical snob.
\*Why yes, I do see the irony.
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### Author:  [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2013, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-people-who-dont-watch-tv-are-braggarts-snobs/647970/102 "2013-01-23T01:11:42Z")
> [@Voyager](#):
>
> How anyone can say “it is all junk” when The Wire exists is beyond me.
There are any number of excellent programs, mostly the dramas, and the better ones have resisted the internal commercial-centric structure - especially HBO productions, since they don’t have commercial breaks. Anyone who tries to watch the completely commercial network programs after watching those structured without cliffhangers and interruptions tends to find the former unwatchably phony in story structure and pacing. I think it was “Heroes” that someone begged me to watch, and after the third or fourth overbearing and hammy _dun-dunt-DAH! Omigod whut’s gonna happen when we come back from the commercial break?_ I gave up.
The issue overall isn’t about just quality, it’s about quantity. You have to be pretty extreme to find something wrong with a person having a glass of wine, a beer or a short finger of whiskey a few times a week; ditto for selective TV-ing. TV watching with some degree of moderation can be accepted as simply entertainment, needing no further justification. Except that… most people watch at the equivalent of chugging down a fifth a night. It’s the excess, the sheer scale of how much time many people put into this “entertainment” that makes it troublesome. It goes beyond entertainment into something much less benign, and I don’t think getting drunk on TV six or seven nights a week is benign.
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### Author:  [@joyfool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joyfool)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2013, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-people-who-dont-watch-tv-are-braggarts-snobs/647970/103 "2013-01-23T01:12:52Z")
I had no idea that this thread could turn into a real life parody. 😛 Color me impressed.
/ Happy TV Watcher
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### Author:  [@EmilyG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EmilyG)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2013, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-people-who-dont-watch-tv-are-braggarts-snobs/647970/104 "2013-01-23T02:00:01Z")
> [@gracer](#):
>
> …
> And yeah, I think just about everything on it is shit. There’s a South Park episode\* where all the music the kids hear suddenly sounds like shit. That’s what it’s like: 99% of all music and all television and all film is like someone farting in my face. Just obnoxious. I prefer it if is not there. There is good stuff, and I will watch some of it. Okidoke.
> \*Why yes, I do see the irony.
I must admit, I have seen some South Park on DVD and online somewhere, and I’ve seen the movie, and I’ve liked quite a bit of it. I also like to watch Whose Line Is It Anyway? when I can find it online. So I don’t hate all TV shows, I guess.
Someone upthread mentioned laugh tracks. That’s one thing I can’t stand in a TV show. Actually, maybe it’s a good thing some shows have laugh tracks, or else I would have no idea which lines were supposed to be funny. 😛
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### Author:  [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2013, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-people-who-dont-watch-tv-are-braggarts-snobs/647970/105 "2013-01-23T02:21:50Z")
> [@Tupac](#):
>
> Thank you **NitroPress.** Sometimes people just can’t handle the truth.
Yep, no snobs here. :rolleyes: Like the internet is so much more intellectually stimulating.
I waited four months for the fucking NHL lockout to be over, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to miss my Penguins playing. If that’s “mind poison”, then hook me up to an IV. 😃
I also find this amusing coming from someone who named himself after a convicted rapist.
“Mind poison” indeed.
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### Author:  [@EmilyG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EmilyG)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2013, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-people-who-dont-watch-tv-are-braggarts-snobs/647970/106 "2013-01-23T03:01:48Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#):
>
> I waited four months for the fucking NHL lockout to be over, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to miss my Penguins playing. If that’s “mind poison”, then hook me up to an IV. 😃
a TV IV?
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### Author:  [@panaccione](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panaccione)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2013, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-people-who-dont-watch-tv-are-braggarts-snobs/647970/107 "2013-01-23T03:04:56Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#):
>
> Yep, no snobs here. :rolleyes: Like the internet is so much more intellectually stimulating.
>
> I waited four months for the fucking NHL lockout to be over, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to miss my Penguins playing. If that’s “mind poison”, then hook me up to an IV. 😃
> I also find this amusing coming from someone who named himself after a convicted rapist.
>
> “Mind poison” indeed.
Maybe, you’re right. I am being an ass. I do like some shows like Breaking Bad, South Park, Daily Show, etc…
I just hate how much it’s influenced the people of this country in a negative way. Perhaps, cable television itself is not the issue but the people behind it. In fact, it could probably be a good thing if it was used properly. But, I don’t see that happening anytime soon.
I didn’t know Tupac got arrested for rape. Shit.
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### Author:  [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2013, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-people-who-dont-watch-tv-are-braggarts-snobs/647970/108 "2013-01-23T03:13:18Z")
Yep. He was supposed to serve I believe about three to five on sexual assault, but I think he was killed before his sentence began. Or something like that. I don’t remember exactly.
Look at it this way: back in the days before TV, you still had sensationalist media – newspapers weren’t necessarily all scholarly. People were STILL being influenced by garbage.
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### Author:  [@panaccione](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panaccione)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2013, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-people-who-dont-watch-tv-are-braggarts-snobs/647970/109 "2013-01-23T04:16:37Z")
True.
Also, I’m from Pittsburgh too. And, I get your name now and I LOVE it!
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### Author:  [@Seanette](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Seanette)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2013, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-people-who-dont-watch-tv-are-braggarts-snobs/647970/110 "2013-01-23T04:50:21Z")
> [@suranyi](#):
>
> I don’t brag about not watching TV. I wish I could watch TV. I used to love watching TV. The problem is, I CAN’T watch TV anymore.
>
> What you’ve got to understand is that in my family of three – my wife, my son, and myself – I now get last choice of TV program. First, if my son wants to watch TV then we watch what he wants to watch. If he doesn’t want to watch, then we watch what my wife wants to watch. Only then do I get to watch what I want. But actually that never happens because in that case my son wants to play with me, or he wants me to read to him. So in practice I never get to see my shows.
>
> Finally, by the time my son goes to bed I’m so exhausted I fall asleep right away myself. I’ve heard that some parents watch the adult shows after their kids go to sleep but I don’t see how that happens.
I’m confused. Why does a parent, who’s one of the people paying the bills, get dictated to by the child? And why is your wife so unwilling to share control of the household entertainment with you?
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### Author:  [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2013, 7:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-people-who-dont-watch-tv-are-braggarts-snobs/647970/111 "2013-01-23T07:04:58Z")
> [@NitroPress](#):
>
> There are any number of excellent programs, mostly the dramas, and the better ones have resisted the internal commercial-centric structure - especially HBO productions, since they don’t have commercial breaks. Anyone who tries to watch the completely commercial network programs after watching those structured without cliffhangers and interruptions tends to find the former unwatchably phony in story structure and pacing. I think it was “Heroes” that someone begged me to watch, and after the third or fourth overbearing and hammy _dun-dunt-DAH! Omigod whut’s gonna happen when we come back from the commercial break?_ I gave up.
>
> The issue overall isn’t about just quality, it’s about quantity. You have to be pretty extreme to find something wrong with a person having a glass of wine, a beer or a short finger of whiskey a few times a week; ditto for selective TV-ing. TV watching with some degree of moderation can be accepted as simply entertainment, needing no further justification. Except that… most people watch at the equivalent of chugging down a fifth a night. It’s the excess, the sheer scale of how much time many people put into this “entertainment” that makes it troublesome. It goes beyond entertainment into something much less benign, and I don’t think getting drunk on TV six or seven nights a week is benign.
I can’t argue with this at all. I can’t imagine watching the average amount of TV. I don’t think we watch any standard network shows at all. And why should I when there is enough good stuff from a variety of sources that more than fill the time I have for it. Anyhow, the difference between now and when I was a kid, or in grad school. is that today you can control the TV more than it controls you.
But that’s different from the “TV is so awful that I won’t touch a single drop” view.
And time shifting a program is still watching TV.
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### Author:  [@usedtobe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/usedtobe)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2013, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-people-who-dont-watch-tv-are-braggarts-snobs/647970/112 "2013-01-23T07:24:22Z")
I have a TV.
Since going to digital, I did buy a converter.
Never got to connecting it.
I have about a few dozen DVD’s - the TV is simply a monitor for the player.
I used to watch 2 shows:
MacNeil - Leher and Simpsons.
I could not stand the rest of broadcast TV.
Then came Google News (home page) and the Simpsons went to hell.
Simply no reason to try to tune it.
I have looked at cable programming - I am not spending 50-100/mo to see 4 or 5 movies.
How many channels of reruns can you absorb?
Yes, it IS scary how many people go home and immediately surrender their minds to TV crap.
Radio was either entertaining (what were early TV shows were just radio shows being broadcast) or it played music - turn it down and have - you know- conversations! Talk to the kids! Play with the dog!. But no, Shhhhh - the commercial is over and I want to hear the laugh track!
As I said - scary.
I would like to check out South Park sometime - maybe I’ll seee if I can download an episode or rent a DVD.
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### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2013, 8:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-people-who-dont-watch-tv-are-braggarts-snobs/647970/113 "2013-01-23T08:09:18Z")
I expect this topic is subject to confirmation bias.
If someone renounces TV and tells everyone, you’ll know about it, and consider it snobbish.
If someone just stops watching TV and gets on with their life, you don’t get to hear about it.
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### Author:  [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2013, 9:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-people-who-dont-watch-tv-are-braggarts-snobs/647970/114 "2013-01-23T09:19:28Z")
In my experience people that brag about not having a TV are like people that brag(\*) about not eating at McDonalds. A lot of the reasons are the same or similar, declaring it to be “rubbish”, “not real food/entertainment”, “intellectually/dietary empty” etc etc etc.
Yet I still see them munching on a burger now and again and they all seem curiously up to date on certain TV shows.
(\*) Note that not everyone brags, this is specifically about those that do.
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### Author:  [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2013, 9:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-people-who-dont-watch-tv-are-braggarts-snobs/647970/115 "2013-01-23T09:58:33Z")
> [@NitroPress](#):
>
> The most intensely educational hour on PBS is equivalent to about ten minutes of reading. The content of most programs could be read in about a minute. Other than being able to sit back and have it spoon-fed to you, I see no great amount of value to spending that hour slowly absorbing a small amount of information.
>
> The vast majority of programs on the so-called science channels have devolved to about ten seconds of interesting or useful content (such as when Mythbusters actually pushes the button to see what happens), surrounded by enormous stretches of nearly content-free padding.
>
> If you aren’t aware that television, as a whole and with almost no exceptions, has become structured to deliver advertising at any cost, then you’re welcome to it. It’s not a matter of Tivo’ing or zipping programs; you’re still getting the commercials jammed at you even in the brief seconds you see them, and in the bottom trash that seems to accompany nearly every program these days, and in a hundred other ways of increasing sophistication. Those of you who say you watch TV but not the commercials have been conditioned to ignore the endless adver-darts being thrown at your zipping eyes, and even to express a certain smugness that you’re immune. MadAve laughs.
>
> What impacts everyone, even the most assiduous commercial-zapper, is that the programs themselves have been structured around the advertising, which is why Mythbusters vamps for twenty minutes, through three cliffhanger commercial breaks, to get to the point. PBS is not greatly different these days despite lacking overt commercial breaks.
>
> So if you think sitting in front of the TV to have information fed to you at a 50:1 rate or worse is a valid use of your time, be my guest. If you think watching only the very finest drama programs with commercials zipped is worth hours of your day, ditto.
>
> I disagree. While I do watch more of the “finer dramas” than in any previous time, it’s perhaps two hours a week… not two or four or eight hours a day.
>
> I really do find better, more productive, more interesting and more useful things to do with that time, and I think my lifetime list of accomplishments is considerably longer than it would have been had I watched TV at anything like the conventional rate.
Comical.
I do it because it is fun. Frankly I don’t do it as much as I wish I could, due to a busy social life.
As you later went on to accept (despite writing “with almost no exceptions”), there is TV out there without adverts. Also, TV can be very educational but it can also be purely entertainment. Or even _gasp_ a mix of both. Just like, you know, books, film, theatre and just about any other form of media.
ETA:
I find it amusing that there are people in the thread that still don’t seem to be able to get their heads around the fact that the problem isn’t people not owning a TV. Hell, my girlfriend doesn’t own one, I am well acquainted with the concept. The issue is people bragging about not having one, as if it somehow makes them superior than the idiotic scum that have their minds melted by adverts. People a bit like NitroPress, basically.
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### Author:  [@gracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gracer)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2013, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-people-who-dont-watch-tv-are-braggarts-snobs/647970/116 "2013-01-23T11:37:33Z")
> [@amanset](#):
>
> ETA:
> I find it amusing that there are people in the thread that still don’t seem to be able to get their heads around the fact that the problem isn’t people not owning a TV. Hell, my girlfriend doesn’t own one, I am well acquainted with the concept. The issue is people bragging about not having one, as if it somehow makes them superior than the idiotic scum that have their minds melted by adverts. People a bit like NitroPress, basically.
Well no, I can’t get my head around that. Because what is this bragging? When does it happen? Why is NitroPress bragging? NitroPress doesn’t like tv & gives reason why he doesn’t like tv. He is of the opinion that tv is a bad influence on people’s lives, an opinion he supports with several reasons (waste of time; numbs the mind) and an opinion he is entitled to hold.
There is loads of stuff that has a negative impact on life and that you can choose not to do, or to limit. I don’t drink soft drinks, because they taste like shit and they’re bad for you. I don’t smoke because it’s disgusting and it’s bad for you. I don’t eat at McDonalds because I don’t like it and it’s bad for you. Other people make different choices, and some of those choices are choices that are bad for you. But if I say that’s how I live my life because I think it’s good idea, suddenly it’s the terrible crime of bragging & snobbery? It’s not like I hand out leaflets telling people how wrong they are, it comes up when people talk about tv.
I don’t think anybody in this thread looks down on people who do choose to watch tv. Even NitroPress. You can just have an opinion on it, and even have the opinion that television is bad for you. Just like the opinion that soft drinks are bad for people, without looking down on them as a person.
I’m not saying that that’s necessarily my opinion, but if it is that of someone else I don’t think it’s a bad thing. I just make the choice for myself that tv is a waste of **my** time. And I think they’re ugly. So if you have a big black flat screen on your wall I feel the same way about it as when you have a really ugly painting. I distinctly do not care and privately think your painting is ugly. That is the entire extent of my opinion on your having a tv.
Everyone has millions of these opinions about what other people do, it doesn’t mean you look down on them, or even that you feel superior. It’s just an opinion.
But really, whatever. If it makes me a snob that I have an opinion that’s fine. I’d rather be a snob than pretend to drink coca cola or worse, really have to drink coca cola. I’ve told people that I do not own a tv on occasions where it was relevant, I have never in my life looked down on anyone for watching tv, I’ve never met anyone who brags about it and I’ve never been accused of bragging or snobbery.
It seems from this thread that mentioning your opinion on television is snobbery. So yeah, I’ll be a snob then.
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### Author:  [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2013, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-people-who-dont-watch-tv-are-braggarts-snobs/647970/117 "2013-01-23T14:27:59Z")
> [@Anaamika](#):
>
> I read anywhere from 4-88 books a month.
Aaah! That would be amazing! I meant 4-8 books, not 88 books!
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### Author:  [@EmilyG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EmilyG)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2013, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-people-who-dont-watch-tv-are-braggarts-snobs/647970/118 "2013-01-23T14:46:19Z")
> [@amanset](#):
>
> In my experience people that brag about not having a TV are like people that brag(\*) about not eating at McDonalds. A lot of the reasons are the same or similar, declaring it to be “rubbish”, “not real food/entertainment”, “intellectually/dietary empty” etc etc etc.
>
> Yet I still see them munching on a burger now and again and they all seem curiously up to date on certain TV shows.
I do admit that I don’t eat at McDonald’s, and that I am, indeed, at least a little proud of the fact. 🙂 Am I a snob?
Then again, I do eat at other fast food places, just not McDonald’s. 😛
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### Author:  [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2013, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-people-who-dont-watch-tv-are-braggarts-snobs/647970/119 "2013-01-23T14:59:42Z")
> [@Mangetout](#):
>
> I expect this topic is subject to confirmation bias.
>
> If someone renounces TV and tells everyone, you’ll know about it, and consider it snobbish.
>
> If someone just stops watching TV and gets on with their life, you don’t get to hear about it.
I think that nails it, at least from one side of the argument. I don’t ever make an issue of my TV/video watching preferences except when it’s raised in a discussion like this, or when I’m writing professionally - and in the latter, it’s very much a residual consideration and not the am-too/ain’t-nohow wang-yanking here.
I do think I’ll archive this thread as a case study of how people can vehemently defend essentially indefensible positions, though. Congrats, folks, you all just became immortal. 🙂
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### Author:  [@EmilyG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EmilyG)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2013, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-people-who-dont-watch-tv-are-braggarts-snobs/647970/120 "2013-01-23T15:10:16Z")
> [@NitroPress](#):
>
> I do think I’ll archive this thread as a case study of how people can vehemently defend essentially indefensible positions, though. Congrats, folks, you all just became immortal. 🙂
And I’m the one who started this thread. I am so proud. I have helped to make people immortal. Can I be a snob about that? 😛
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