"I don't even own a TV"

I put salt on my TV

the following day I was walking along the canal and he appeared on the path walking towards me smiling with a skateboard strapped to his back and slowed to say hello but I kept my pace and informed him that I don't skateboard as I passed

It never fails to amaze me, the things that people will get incredibly judgmental about, and then justify their behaviour by claiming "OH BUT THOSE PEOPLE I'M JUDGING ARE SO SNOBBY AND JUDGEMENTAL". This isn't about anything except projection.

― BLEEEEEEE Monday (Branwell Bell), Monday, 31 March 2014 19:24 (Yesterday) Permalink

http://static.gamesradar.com/images/mb/GamesRadar/us/Features/2011/04/Mortal%20Kombat%20Week/Evolution%20of%20Scorpion%20and%20Sub-Zero/MK/doubleice--article_image.jpg

I find myself wondering if "I only watch via the Internet" is the new snobbish version of IDEOATV. I'm pretty sure I've been guilty of proselytizing about how going Internet-only will set you free, but I was the same way when I first got satellite+Tivo. All technology has done is make the existing television even more non-linear.

The IDEOATV people have a smugness about them that feels almost class-based. Insert every argument about high-brow vs. low-brow culture here.

Those 60s media guys: McLuhan, Postman, etc. they were really onto something. Television is different.

.

I feel like if you're watching TV programming on the internet you're still watching tv

lalalalala not listening

the fundamental difference is that on the internet you've gone to find that thing you're watching rather than just clicked around to see what's on

the internet is still pull rather than push

or in my case, skim and restate

the fundamental difference is that on the internet you've gone to find that thing you're watching rather than just clicked around to see what's on

― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, April 1, 2014 9:07 AM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

except if you've had cable in like the last 10 years there's all sorts of on-demand options for pretty much all shows...not to mention everyone who uses a PS3 or Xbox 360 and Netflix/Hulu+ or a Roku with their TV

Is it wrong to automatically assume that people who don't own/watch tvs have more fulfulling lives than tv watchers? Or is that a stereotype? Do these people just spend the same amount of time reading trashy novels, or are they out working in soup kitchens and tending to community gardens?

I didn't pay for cable until October 2012, which was like not having TV at all (thanks to a converter box I could watch broadcast channels in my bedroom). I still only watch the news and use the cable for YouTube and Netflix.

how about people who don't watch live television but run out of quality shows on netflix and just binge through whatever garbage is there

hi

Voted death to "dont even own" obv btw

xp yeah "The Medium is the Message" isn't some hippy-dippy mind-blower like it sounds, it just means that the nature of the medium and the context in which it is used is going to shape the content. If a station needs to have commercial breaks every x minutes, then the show has to be written in a way that it can be broken up easily. If the economics require you to have an enormous general audience, you may need to write the show in a way such that no episode requires thorough memory of the prior episode. There are a variety of reasons why a show like The Wire (sorry to keep hammering that one) couldn't have been written for NBC in the mid-90s, even aside from the censorable content -- it requires a lot of intense attention, some scenes almost require you to pick up on a different dialect of English, each episode builds on the last, etc. It wouldn't work economically for NBC, and it barely worked for HBO in the era of DVD sets and on-demand viewing. My point isn't "The Wire is unequivocally better than 90s television," it's just that I don't buy "television is television, same shit different screen."

I've gone through entire runs of several TV shows on netflix which I exclusively watched while folding laundry. I never pick shows that I really want to watch for these situations, because I'm not paying 100% attention to the show, which means that I know a lot about Dexter and Weeds and a bunch of other somewhat decent but ultimately terrible tv shows. Sometimes I feel like this stuff is taking up valuable brain space.

xpost
1) no duh

2) i'm not talking about HBO stuff or House of Cards vs. like a 90s sitcom...I'm talking about some ppl who seem to think like watching Parks & Rec on Netflix is somehow not "TV"

"I don't take Sky/have a Sky box" is the C21 version of "I don't watch ITV".

(I don't take Sky or watch ITV)

everything is TV! a book is just TV on paper! ILX is just a really bad Frasier script published on page at a time on the internet!

Right but even a show like Parks & Rec can wind up partly shaped by the fact that a big part of its audience is going to watch on netflix instead of on broadcast. I don't know the numbers for that specific show, but if you no longer have to rely solely on the "broad" part of "broadcast" then you can do things differently.

And TBH the writing in Parks & Rec still seems a little sharper than, IDK, Full House.

I don't own a TV. Well I mean, I do own a TV, there's one in my house but I never watch it. Not unless it's something I like, like the news for instance, or University Challenge. And okay, I do like Breaking Bad, but that's it. I may as well not have a TV because who needs one? Mind control. And the adverts, god knows how many ad breaks there must be between segments on Game of Thrones. I may as well just watch the ads even though they're blatantly the best bits. Better than The Voice, which is crap, but I still watch it sometimes. Well most times it's on actually. I don't like How I Met Your Mother or the Big Bang Theory but I have to watch them cos my girlfriend likes them. Oh, and I'll watch Corrie while I'm having my tea but not Eastenders. Well sometimes Eastenders. I like a film too. And then what I like to do, if there's nothing on I'll stream something from Netflix. But on the whole I avoid the telly. Rots your brains. Nature documentaries are good though, I watch those. We've got the nature channel now and I'm addicted, but that's alright cos it's educational isn't it? I'll watch anything factual - war documentaries, nature documentaries, quizzes, Lov'd Up In Ibiza.. But no I don't watch TV. No use for one. Gives you square eyes, I may as well get rid of it.

And TBH the writing in Parks & Rec still seems a little sharper than, IDK, Full House.

― james franco tur(oll)ing test (Hurting 2), Tuesday, April 1, 2014 9:47 AM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's no more complex than Seinfeld, and Seinfeld had tons of strange little recurring characters and storylines

my main point is not about the art of TV and how on demand is changing it blah blah blah

IT'S ABOUT MOTHERFUCKERS YOU ARE WATCHING TV SHIT IF YOU ARE WATCHING TV SHIT STEP OFF YR HIGH HORSE

ILX is the best kind of reality tb

no one is on a high horse, this is the point of the thread

mississippi shakedown you're right, the lines between "sit up" and "sit back" have become v blurred

I'm talking about some ppl who seem to think like watching Parks & Rec on Netflix is somehow not "TV"

i have to say, netflix feels a little hermetic to me, i mean it is awesome obviously, but i can't shake the slightly "dead" vibe, like maybe i'm in a post-apocalyptic survival capsule somewhere, a wire piped in with an archive of humanity's televised entertainment on it, enough to last 5 lifetimes. i will often find myself flipping over to live TV and watching something worse on every objective level, but vibing on it more because it's live. i wonder if today's kids will grow up feeling that distinction between something live and recorded?

anyway i can understand people who are basically like, if it's not a live broadcast it's not really TV. it's videotape by another name. you are not participating ins omething as a communal experience with thousands of other people all seeing the same things you are at the same time.

I don't buy that distinction at all. If you watch programmes made for TV you're watching TV. I watch most TV time-shifted these days and never feel that it doesn't count because I'm missing the in-the-moment communal experience.

what if you watch on a one-hour time delay and skip all the commercials?

are people on the west coast forever watching "not tv" because shows air later

yeah DVR already changed viewing habits long ago w/cable!

idk tracer i get the hermetic description but yr verging into "you havent heard them til you've heard them liiiive' territory there by the end imo

ITT - people making dumb parallels.

no one is on a high horse, this is the point of the thread

― lex pretend, Tuesday, April 1, 2014 3:03 PM (2 minutes ago)

bahaha wait how exactly does this fit with "people who use the trope strawman of the "i dont even own a tv" crowd are THE FUCKING WORST" that keeps popping up all over this thread

basically "I watch tv in a slightly different manner than someone else" is the new "I don't even own a TV".

I thought the point of the thread was that people hear people complain about that trope, realize they don't have a television, and think others are complaining about _them_

not everything is about you, guys

well, maybe about a few people who seem to really have a chip on their shoulders about this

High strawhorse trope is the worst

also jesus a bunch of you make it sound like people at parties and work like smell your not-tv-watching from across the room and run over wild eyed and jam a pile of tv guides in your hand like they are jack chick tracts xp

the poll options offered here are very high-horsey

The point of the thread is war.

tbh if your coworkers are hounding you about not watching Parks & Rec or w/e, the problem is that your coworkers are dicks

i put on a shirt and tie and go around my neighborhood to hand out TV guides to my neighbors to spread the good word about television

"quick grab that dude i can sense that he hasn't seen season 4 of Everybody Loves Raymond, my reeducation van is just down the street"

I used to record things off the telly onto vhs, it felt good knowing that millions of people across the country weren't watching along with me

basically "I watch tv in a slightly different manner than someone else" is the new "I don't even own a TV".

i used to have no tv, now i have 3 tvs. but i won't pay for cable, and the only tv i watch is netflix, while riding my bike trainer.

oh, and i only watch the bike trainer netflix on a teeny macbook.

is this good enough?

haha i just read the actual poll options and no matter what wins, we all lose, well done

what about I don't even own a smartphone

People who simply do not own televisions are more annoying
People who insist that people who say "I don't even own a TV" are indicative of some annoying trope or or avatar of cultural snobbery or whatever are more annoying

there's something missing here...

People

option one wins - vindication for those that feel that simple non-tv owners are persecuted
option two wins - vindication for those that feel that simple non-tv owners are persecuted

speaking as a logician its really an amazing trick, srsly

"I watch tv in a slightly different manner than someone else" is the new "I don't even own a TV".

This is OTM, and I'm glad to have slight differences in TV-watching as a good small talk topic with acquaintances. Way more interesting than real estate prices and traffic/driving routes!