Well, if anyone brings it up in the course of a conversation others are having about some TV show or something, then they are absolutely asses. Of course they’re proud about their little jab against the corporate man/boob toob/MTV generation/whatever, regardless of their tone of voice.
I still don’t bother hooking up that little DTV box to my TV, but there’s a cooler way to say in a conversation about some shitty show “you know, you guys are making me glad I killed my TV [or whatever], but I still love watching online – progress!” These are RL conversations I’m talking about, though.
I don’t have cable and I’m proud of it. I feel it’s a health lifestyle and consider tv to be something akin to “mind poison.” Thats a term I came up with on my own, so I’m not offended if you dont take it seriously. But i cant think of any other way to put it. I think we’d all be a lot better off without it.
We had a C-Band subscription for a fair number of channels, but when the provider dropped the service, we just let it all go dark. It had become an electronic fireplace of sorts (allusion to John Lennon’s last Playboy interview), so losing it was not that big a deal. Now, if I want to watch stuff, I have broadband, though mostly I just look at web pages and post on fora.
I rarely watch TV, but it’s because, during the immense majority of the times when I’m awake and in reach of a TV, the best thing available is NCIS reruns (of which I’ve watched so many that my family likes to call me to see if I remember the episode or at least can place it in time “oh yeah, that actress is in the series for the second time, in this arc she’s playing her first character’s sister”). Also, since I travel internationally a lot, any series I happen to catch will be impossible to follow as it airs.
It’s more of a “by prime time I’m asleep” thing than any kind of brag.
ETA: most of my current coworkers are Spaniards who’d been wanting to get jobs abroad for the longest time, without realizing the drawbacks (not kissing your kids goodnight, not being with your SO, missing your favorite programs, being too tired to meet up with your pals). Whenever they complain about one of those, the two of us who already had the T-Shirt say “yep” and don’t comment any further.
Seems like I noticed a lot more people bragging about not owning TVs a decade or so ago then I do these days. I suspect as computers have become more ubiquitous, there are a lot more possibilities for sedentary, mindless entertainment, so “I don’t even own a TV” doesn’t really mean what it used to any more.
A lot of people get offended if you mention you don’t do/eat/like/support something they do. To me, the most efficient way to explain to someone that I a]have no idea what they are talking about and b]will never know what they are talking about when they bring up tv, is to just tell them I haven’t watched more than a couple hours of it in the past year. If they want to think I think I’m better than them, lol. I have nothing against tv and have watched plenty of it in my life.
I have met people who are self-righteous and weird about their refusal to watch tv, or how they eat, or whatever. Those people are annoying.
This is me, too. I sometimes wander off in the middle of a movie in search of something to do. I end up working on a song or playing uke. Or doing a home project. Or cooking something. I can read for hours at a time though and not get bored of it. Maybe reading is not passive like watching the tube. When I do watch TV, it’s something mindless or unsophisticated like Cops or Chopped or Wheeler Dealer.
I am completely baffled by some of the comments in this thread. If one has a DVR, you’ll never ever have to watch another commercial again as long as you live, nor would you be beholden to plopping down in front of the TV at a certain day and time to see a favorite show. I don’t think I’ve viewed anything live, beyond the news, in years. Hell, I couldn’t for the most part even tell you what channel anything I like comes on. Just so you all know.
Yeah, but I don’t have a DVR, and I have zero interest in getting one, because I don’t care enough about TV programs. There’s nothing on there I care about recording. There’s nothing on there I care about watching. You may as well be asking me to record muzak from the mall to play back in my car on the drive home, or something.
I used to find it annoying. Now I find it merely amusing. Someone would want it engraved on their tombstone: “he didn’t watch TV”? There must be better things to feel smug about.
I rarely, rarely watch TV. I dislike most shows, and of the shows that I do like, I generally only want to watch them once or maybe twice. I probably should get a DVR, because there are some shows that I’m mildly interested in watching, but I can never remember that a show is on unless I’ve set an alarm or timer or something.
I spend an awful lot of time watching cat videos, though. And I can watch most of them over and over again. I need regular kitten fixes.
We don’t have cable. We do have a big TV, and it’s frequently watched. My husband and I are just movie people. (And we like to watch the ones we like over and over until we about memorize them). When we watch a TV series, it’s generally by the season, a few shows a night until it’s done or we’re sick of it. I don’t like reality TV, and I don’t like weekly episodic drama. We got an AppleTV, and between Netflix, iTunes and our large DVD collection, we found we just didn’t watch cable enough for it to be worth the money.
People like to talk about TV, and it quickly becomes apparent that not only do I not watch whatever shows, I no longer have any clue what any of these shows even are. There is no way to say, “I don’t watch much TV,” without someone making a face an assuming I’m a snob.
I feel like replying, “I’m really not at all cool. This weekend I watched Robin Hood Prince of Thieves, a Queen Latifah rom com, and 9 episodes of Quantum Leap.”
I think this thread is DEFINITELY confirming it. :rolleyes:
A friend of mine only watches stuff online because he’s almost never home, so he said it would be a waste of money to buy a TV. (Plus he’s able to view more things online, anyways)
And yes, I do have a TV. I have gasp cable too. Don’t hate me, bro.
My TV is generally always on when I am home. I’m not necessarily watching it; it’s background noise. That being said, it really is background noise. I live alone, and except for my cats and their meows and purrs, I’m not likely to hear much else except TV if I am at home.
Still, a lot of today’s shows hold little interest. Outside of news and live sports, I watch very few “new” shows. I don’t schedule my life around TV show schedules, as a few people I know do; I’m happier with syndicated sitcoms and the like. And reruns of classic movies on TCM, documentaries on History, and similar. If nothing I like is on the horizon, I pop a DVD into the player.
I do that too, sometimes. If I don’t feel like listening to music, and there’s no one else home, sometimes I’ll put on the TV, just so the house isn’t so eerie-quiet.
I don’t watch most regular shows (as in sitcoms and dramas), rather I like stuff on the History Channel, or South Park or the news. I also watch a lot of sports stuff, like hockey and football. I usually have the NHL Network on.
We also have digital cable downstairs in the living room, which has music channels, so there’s that.
(And commercials only serve one purpose – to give you a chance to get up and go to the bathroom. Duh. ;))
If my husband is out of town, I do turn the big TV on, but it’s generally on one of the music stations. I like the TV music selections better than most radio stations. If there’s a marathon of a show that I particularly like, I might watch it instead of going online. For the most part, though, the big TV belongs to my husband, and if he’s home, he’s probably watching something on it. We have two other TVs, but both are hooked up to video game consoles as well as the dish, and if I sit down in front of one of them, I’ll usually play a game rather than watch TV.
I used to watch stuff on the History channel, but I’ve been very turned off by most of their later offerings.
