Do you think people who don't watch TV are braggarts/snobs?

In My Humble Opinion
61

Get your things and get out. :mad:

TV only has a bad reputation among jerks. For the rest of the world, watching TV is something to do for entertainment. Funnily enough, there is a lot of great, smart, worthwhile programming on television, and even the most avowed TV-bashers will acknowledge this. Yet they still get their jollies from proclaiming to the world that they don’t watch, or even own (!) a television set. I went on a handful of dates with a guy who took a bunch of crap he’d been storing at his mom’s house for entirely too long back home, one of which included a TV. He put it in a closet, then got rid of it immediately because he didn’t even like owning a TV. That’s how dedicated he was to the snobbery. Come on now.

Anywho, so I am once again the owner of a television set. I don’t have cable, went a few years without a TV at all, and even now I don’t watch a whole lot of it. Not because of any snobbery or anything, but like others, I grew up in a household in which TV was more or less against the rules on school nights. I think that’s how I became such a radio nerd. In my mother’s head, watching TV would distract me from doing my homework so it was verboten, but I could listen to as much radio as I wanted. Go figure.

62

It’s like with vegans.

Some think not watching TV is a marker of virtue, rather than being a lifestyle choice.

63

Funny, when I first realized that not watching TV was something that people got snotty about, I used to be pretty pretentious about it. I was 19 then.

64

I think that necessarily presupposes that people watch TV because they think it’s a virtue.

Other than “because I wanna,” “because I can,” and “because you can’t tell me what to do,” what value is there in watching television? Put another way, just because some vast majority does watch, why does that make watching more superior than not-watching?

You can wuss out and say both are “lifestyle choices” and thus immune to judgment, but we both know there’s more to it, whichever way it’s, um, viewed.

I can think of arguments for the superiority of not watching (the baseline one being that it leaves more time for more worthwhile things - and yes, I think ‘worthwhile’ is an absolute here), but I can’t think of a single one for the superiority of watching, except for the social validation of participating.

65

If you say something about it it might be taken as kind of snobby, but if someone doesn’t say anything about it how would you know, and so how coulod it be snobbish?

66

Why do people say things like this? At any given time, you almost certainly can be doing something more worthwhile. I can go for a bike ride, which is fair enough, but why do that when I can be volunteering at a homeless shelter? Well because I like bike rides and they’re good for me. I also call my friends on the phone. Is that that the most worthwhile thing that there is? No. I hang out at happy hour with my friends. Is that the most worthwhile thing that there is? Hell no. And I should probably do a lot less of that. There is always something “more worthwhile” to be done. This does not mean you should cut all entertainment out of your life. Sure, I do things that are Good (capital G) with my life, but I also do bullshit like read magazines, play dodgeball (I’m in a league!), buy clothes that I don’t need, and watch “Family Guy.” Whatever.

67

Because the derived value from TV is so low that a good nap probably beats it in the worthwhile category. And because it’s not a sometime thing for most people, like drinking or playing solitaire or other activities of questionable value; the majority of people watch hours of TV every day. It’s not a trivial use of individual time.

If that’s how you choose to spend your time, it’s your choice - but I can’t see ANY argument that it’s a virtuous or positive one except in the vaguely libertarian “I can do any goddamned thing I want to” sense.

68

Okay, if you think there is NOTHING on television at all worth watching, you’re too busy being full of yourself to think about this objectively.

69

I’m not going to continue a pointless pissing contest here. I didn’t say there was nothing worth watching; I said the derived value from watching is extremely low.

Drop your skirts or go piss on someone else now.

70

Okaaaay, I guess I’ll rephrase. If there’s nothing on TV whose value from watching is anything but “extremely low” to you, then you’re too busy feeling good about yourself to be objective. Whatever, feel free to not watch the boob tube if you want, and I sure as heck don’t watch much of it, but it’s crazy talk to say taking a nap gives greater value than watching, hell, just about anything on PBS. Except “Rick Steves’ Europe.” I hate that guy.

71

I think the causal relationship is in reverse. That is, people are braggarts or snobs and then determine that something they do that is different from others is why they’re better than them. The thing is, watching TV is pretty normal, so you’re not going to see someone say “I’m better than you because I watch TV” though you may see “I’m better than you because I watch PBS”, which I have seen, or “I’m better than you because I don’t watch TV”, which I’ve also seen. So, what you end up seeing is a lot of people who claim to be better than you because they don’t watch TV, but there’s probably also plenty of people who watch little or no TV and don’t brag about it, but because you never see the reverse, it sticks out.

Really, the lesson to be taken from this is that people will brag about just about anything if they feel they need to and they think that thing makes them special.

72

I think my biggest problem with cable is how badly it has influenced the mindset of this nation. Materialism and ignorance being two of the main culprits. I mean, just look at what Fox News has done to the discource of this nation.

I’m sorry, pompous braggart or not, I think it’s a bad decision to spending hours watching tv and subjecting yourself to those kinds of influences. We live in the age of information where there is so much to learn and so many ways to make better use of your time. Still, people will spend countless hours doing it without giving it a second thought.

73

I don’t agree there is no value whatsoever to be gained from watching TV. Watching TV just because, sitting in front of the boob tube and hating everything you watch, sure.

But TV, just like everything else is a form of art as well as entertainment. Some shows/movies/whatever address really big issues and deliver them to the masses. Maybe most people will just sit there and drool (:)) but maybe some will start thinking, and endeavor to learn more.

I really don’t think there’s any art form that can be bashed in its entirety. Correct me if I’m wrong. (Actually, don’t correct me, I don’t feel like getting into that particular debate.)

All I’m saying is everything in moderation, including moderation.

74

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.

75

Well there’s your answer right there, OP.

76

RIGHT??!!

I don’t even have words to respond to that. Jesus lords…

77

This thread reminds me of the ones about how Ivy League graduates allegedly try to work their educational background into every situation. The message is that not only should they not try to work their educational background into every conversation, they also shouldn’t be evasive or vague about it either, because that’s somehow also snobbery. So what this means to me is people have pretty much just decided Ivy League graduates are snobs and force every one of them to fit into their preconceived mold regardless of whether they deserve it.

So it is for people who don’t watch TV. People interpret things how they want to interpret them. I’ve never in my life had someone behave snobbily about not watching television. But I’m also not looking for it, either. So some people feel it’s not worthwhile. So what? Why would that bother you so much what some other person decided for their own life?

Personally I think there is some awesome television out there to be seen, but that really has nothing to do with whether or not I have a TV. In the world of Hulu and Netflix and iTunes, if you’re willing to wait a while, you can watch pretty much anything you want without owning a television. We dropped our TV service a couple of months ago due to expense, but we still watch TV shows all the damn time. You know what I mean?

78

I dunno. When the participants on this board aggressively defend not just the right to watch TV, but the right to call anyone who doesn’t a snob, I can only weep for the species.

Oh, look, your show’s back on.

79

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.

80

If people don’t like something I like, that’s fine… but it does bug me when someone is ignorantly dismissive.

For instance, there was a thread about Pixar movies a while back in which someone said they never watched Pixar movies because (paraphrasing) “they’re just full of pop culture references, and gimmicky big name guest stars”. Now, it’s absolutely 100% clear to me that this person was thinking of movies like “Madagascar” and “Shark Tale” which do in fact promote themselves heavily by listing their voice talent; and assuming that Pixar movies are the same. When they are clearly not. If you don’t like Pixar movies, or don’t want to watch them for whatever reason, well, I think that’s your loss, but if you are going to make claims about WHY that is, and those claims ring untrue to me, then it really pisses me off.

Similarly, there are any number of totally reasonable reasons to not have a TV, or not watch TV. But when people describe the current state of TV as a whole in dismissive terms, because they believe that all TV is these days is 150 different versions of Real Housewives of X, that irks me. By just about any possible subjective measure, there is an amazing amount of high quality artistically and culturally and intellectually interesting television programming being made these days. It’s still dwarfed by the amount of crap that’s being produced, and again, if you just don’t want to watch any or all of the shows that I like and respect, that’s fine… but to dismissively sneer Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, Homeland, Parks and Recreation, Planet Earth, Downton Abbey and The Daily Show into the same category as Here Comes Honey Boo Boo… that’s just pure intellectual laziness.