Those reality/relationship/dating/pick-a-mate-for-life shows on MTV and VH1. I only see those when I’m hitting the upchannel button on the remote looking for something worth watching*; but, honest to God: those people should be deposited at the bottom of the Marianas Trench tied to a really big lead weight. The men are uniformly as stupid as a rock; the women are also as stupid as a rock, but they have big plastic boobs (which is actually more of a minus than a plus).
What exactly is the audience for these shows? It can’t be stoners - is there another brain-dead group out there? Zombie rapper wanna-be’s?
*Note to self: deprogram that shit - has anything actually watchable been on those channels in decades?
Other than stoners? I don’t think so. They are bottom-of-the-barrel morons.
Seriously though, I think some stoners do watch that shit. When I smoke with one of my friends, he and his girlfriend use VH1 and MTV as their ‘default channels’.
Just yesterday I was over at their place and they were watching a talk show where the host is the bald guy from Jerry Springer Show. Guess he got his own show. I’m not sure what the theme of the show was, there were kids on stage and their father, but whatever it was it evoked a few “awww’s” from my buddies girlfriend. I wanted to smack her. Whatever the story on-stage was, those kid’s are going to have to live with their dirty laundry getting aired out in front of a non-professional, and a nationwide audience.
Ah! Another one from me…more like a category, really: about half of the programming, at any one time, from the Cartoon Network’s “Adult Swim” lineup.
I mean, don’t get me wrong, they have their fair share of good shows. Quirky, clever stuff. And they have their “guilty pleasures”—you know, the kind of shows that’ll never win any awards, and rightly so, but that are still good for a cheap laugh, now and then, even if only for the sheer horror of it.
The rest…well, I’ll try and put it as diplomatically as I can. You’d have to be on mind altering substances to really appreciate them; and I’d count the category of “substances,” in this instance, to include fast-moving bricks.
Fusing the “best” parts of Dada and psychedelic art schools (albeit leaving out the totally unnecessary justification from historical context), using a binding agent of a toddler’s fascination with their own feces, and all for the budget price of twenty-five cents on the dollar compared to other shows, they are indeed a fine addition to the network lineup—and, as they are fond of reminding, if it doesn’t suit your tastes, you can always watch anime. Because anime is stupid, and weird, and so are you, you unappreciative clod.