Not owning a television: c or d?

My Freeview was acting up during the Wimbledon men's final so i switched to watching it on "HD" iPlayer (connected to my TV) and it didn't even come close to the TV broadcast. I could barely see the ball at times.

CHAPEL HILL, NC–Area resident Jonathan Green does not own a television, a fact he repeatedly points out to friends, family, and coworkers–as well as to his mailman, neighborhood convenience-store clerks, and the man who cleans the hallways in his apartment building.

Enlarge Image Area Man Constantly Mentioning

Jonathan Green, who tells as many people as possible that he is "fully weaned off the glass teat."

"I, personally, would rather spend my time doing something useful than watch television," Green told a random woman Monday at the Suds 'N' Duds Laundromat, noticing the establishment's wall-mounted TV. "I don't even own one."

According to Melinda Elkins, a coworker of Green's at The Frame Job, a Chapel Hill picture-frame shop, Green steers the conversation toward television whenever possible, just so he can mention not owning one.

"A few days ago, [store manager] Annette [Haig] was saying her new contacts were bothering her," Elkins said. "The second she said that, I knew Jonathan would pounce. He was like, 'I didn't know you had contacts, Annette. Are your eyes bad? That a shame. I'm really lucky to have almost perfect vision. I'm guessing it's because I don't watch TV. In fact, I don't even own one."

According to Elkins, "idiot box" is Green's favorite derogatory term for television.

"He uses that one a lot," she said. "But he's got other ones, too, like 'boob tube' and 'electronic babysitter.'"

Elkins said Green always makes sure to read the copies of Entertainment Weekly and People lying around the shop's break room, "just so he can point out all the stars and shows he's never heard of."

"Last week, in one of the magazines, there was a picture of Calista Flockhart," Elkins said, "and Jonathan announced, 'I have absolutely no idea who this woman is. Calista who? Am I supposed to have heard of her? I'm sorry, but I haven't.'"

Tony Gerela, who lives in the apartment directly below Green's and occasionally chats with the 37-year-old by the mailboxes, is well aware of his neighbor's disdain for television.

"About a week after I met him, we were talking, and I made some kind of Simpsons reference," Gerela said. "He asked me what I was talking about, and when I told him it was from a TV show, he just went off, saying how the last show he watched was some episode of Cheers, and even then, he could only watch for about two minutes before having to shut it off because it insulted his intelligence so terribly."

Added Gerela: "Once, I made the mistake of saying I saw something on the news, and he started in with, 'Saw the news? I don't know about you, but I read the news."

Green has lived without television since 1989, when his then-girlfriend moved out and took her set with her.

"When Claudia went, the TV went with her," Green said. "But instead of just going out and buying another one–which I certainly could have afforded, that wasn't the issue–I decided to stand up to the glass teat."

"I'm not an elitist," Green said. "It's just that I'd much rather sculpt or write in my journal or read Proust than sit there passively staring at some phosphorescent screen."

"If I need a fix of passive audio-visual stimulation, I'll go to catch a Bergman or Truffaut film down at the university," Green said. "I certainly wouldn't waste my time watching the so-called Learning Channel or, God forbid, any of the mind sewage the major networks pump out."

Continued Green: "People don't realize just how much time their TV-watching habit–or, shall I say, addiction–eats up. Four hours of television a day, over the course of a month, adds up to 120 hours. That's five entire days! Why not spend that time living your own life, instead of watching fictional people live theirs? I can't begin to tell you how happy I am not to own a television."

i LOVE the fact that it keeps so many people indoors for hours at a time. instead of outside trying to kill me.

Also I get v highly strong, mentally and physically, when shit-talking abt people I know is going down, and so it's kind of good everyone watches TV shows bcz then you can at least steer the conversation to 'so what do you think will happen to House next season' as opposed to 'so did you know she's getting married bcz she got pregnant'?

highy STRUNG, tho I am worried someday my mild-mannered Bruce Banner ways will be betrayed by impatience with others.

i can't really follow your posts brooke shields is crying on t.v.

your mascara is getting empathy runniness

When I'm sick or depressed, all I can consume is powerade and potatoes. I can also say that flu I had 3 years ago wld have felt 1000x longer if I didn't have a several-day-long Roseanne marathon to get all delirious with.

See but this is if you have cable or DVDs. I dont know what TV is like elsewhere but we only have 5 channels free to air here and a lot of people cant pick several of them up. They only run big ticket, shitty commercial tv shows with lots of ads. No old reruns, no marathons, just crap like Biggest Loser and Idol and the news and various crappy sitcoms and soaps all the time. I dont want that shit.

If I had cable I might watch TV more but its expensive and not everywhere has it. Americans seem to see cable as something normal and part of TV but it isnt here and has never been really.

i hate that onion article. it gives the people who don't like people who don't like television something to throw into every fucking thread whenever someone mentions they don't watch television or own a television. television is shit.

But I have to say the internet is as much or more a time suck and mindless waste than TV ever was for me, so you know.

I agree with you bug!

fuck you all

We had cable a few months, as a wedding gift from the mom-in-law, who paid it for one month and then defaulted and we're stuck w/this like $400+ bill.

LB if you do that you'll catch something horrible xpost

Abbott thats horrible!

Does anyone else associate the 'Price is Right' theme song with 'sweet I convinced my parents I was sick enough to stay home all day'? Or is that just people who didn't have cable. (I'll up you one, Trayce: my family only ever had FOUR channels.)

I would miss out on a lot of interesting futból action if I didn't have a TV (and live in an area with 3 Spanish-language broadcast TV stations).

xp I'll up you one more, Abbott, my family had two.

Like right now I'm half-watching Canada v. El Salvador on Galavison. What a country!

xxpost yep. that's prolly why i also associate the price is right with guilt-laced boredom.

dan I hope they were called the Sad Channel and the Lonely Channel.

I grew up with 2 channels in my childhood - the ABC (like our BBC) and one mixed rural/regional channel that got bits and pieces of the big city's channels. So I missed out on lots. Like Prisoner and number 96.

Sad: PBS
Lonely: CBS

But I didnt watch lots of TV as a kid. We played Monkey out in the yard and went swimming and like DID STUFF. Do kids DO STUFF anymore?

/srs case of old

Occasionally we could pick up CBC out of Thunder Bay since we lived on a hill, but only if the weather was right.

I hope yr randomized channel was CIVIC-TV.

Today's generation will be FORCED to do activities by the Pokewalker.

Kids do do stuff, it's all of us who stay inside all day! Neighborhood is fucking cluttered with kids holding bike races.

As you walk around with the PokeWalker in hand, the internal Pokemon will gain experience. Its affection for you will also grow. The device converts your foot steps into "watts," which can be used to catch wild Pokemon and search for tools for sending back to the main Heart Gold/Soul Silver software.

But I didnt watch lots of TV as a kid. We played Monkey out in the yard and went swimming and like DID STUFF. Do kids DO STUFF anymore?

/srs case of old

― lolsbury hill (Trayce), Tuesday, July 7, 2009 8:58 PM (23 minutes ago) Bookmark

i did all this stuff and watched a shit load of tv every day. time management.

it's harder to watch mindless TV than ever.

I used to LOVE LOVE LOVE spending hours just clicking through channels when I was a teenager.

Now with digital/HD cable
a) Every channel takes two seconds to "load," so becomes frustrating after clicking through like 10 channels
b)There's an extra 4 minutes of commercials every half hour on every channel so I barely get any shows.

Basically, I'm reduced to just DVRing the 7 shows that I like because channel surfing is such a chore. I'm gonna bail on cable because cable has made itself no fun.

Also, Tuomas, shut the fuck up now and forever.

boy you like to make sure you don't forget about your stfus

it was on my "to do" list

[√] do laundry
[√] mail out electric bill
[√] tell Tuomas to shut the fuck up now and forever

a) Every channel takes two seconds to "load," so becomes frustrating after clicking through like 10 channels

this is a great point and has totally killed channel surfing for me.

Does anyone else associate the 'Price is Right' theme song with 'sweet I convinced my parents I was sick enough to stay home all day'?

For me when I was a kid it was 'Days of Our Lives', which mum used my being home as an excuse to watch. What was also great was its famous glacial pace meant that your fake colds could be 3 months apart, and you'd still pick up what was happening.

My Chilean co-worker, who hasn't been in Australia that long, only just realised that Neighbours is not like the telenovelas she's familiar with, and that it will never come to any conclusion, and this has mad her roaringly angry.

Oh great now I'm a "hilarious" screen name.

Wait I've been one before wtf am i bitching about.

wait what?

Trayce Lorenz (Whiney G. Weingarten), Tuesday, July 7, 2009 10:29 PM (26 minutes ago) Bookmark

oh I thought you were sad I lolled @ lolsbury hill

I remember the tender days of Trayce Hand

This is true, but I think the way TV functions makes it more fitting for passive consumption. Most people don't have a steady, endless stream of comic or movies or magazines or books available for them. I agree that the Internet can be just as bad though.

― Tuomas, Tuesday, July 7, 2009 6:59 AM (14 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

That said I'm pretty sure 'the television' as we currently know and understand it will be obsolete within 20 years. It'll all be about yer multimedia internet-connected streaming entertainment centres that just happen to work as TVs as well.

― Matt DC, Tuesday, July 7, 2009 7:00 AM (14 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

with on demand and dvr (plus a gazillion channels), we're already at the halfway point, and watching tv has become significantly less of passive "you have to watch what THE MAN wants you to watch!! WAKE UP FROM YOUR MENTAL SLUMBER" type activity.

with on demand and dvr (plus a gazillion channels)

This doesnt exist where I live and may never.

well, not exactly anyway.

Another version of 'I don't OWN a tv' you can play in places like Australia or the UK is 'oh, I don't watch COMMERCIAL tv!', which I've been occasionally guilty of.

Does anyone else associate the 'Price is Right' theme song with 'sweet I convinced my parents I was sick enough to stay home all day'?

For me when I was a kid it was 'Days of Our Lives'

me too! but it was at our elderlyish next door neighbors place passing out after icecream w/ bananas and drugs for lunch. i still see that hourglass all in a fuzzy haze in my minds eye.

Haha I got to watch DOTL every day in high school cause my school was right behind my house so I'd come home for lunch every day and watch it =)

For people who don't want to own a tv, not owning a tv is classic. For others, who would like to watch tv from time to time, it is more of a dud. amirite?

I actually cant watch TV right now, not don't. We can only get signal (what you say) via our digital receptor PVR thingy and thats currently unable to be connected up due to 83745673485 consoles being connected instead. So the maybe 2 shows a week I mightve watched, I dont.

However, all the free to air channels here have "catch-up" stuff on line so you can watch it there anyway so its no big deal.

i just got a digital box. poker on ten's sports channel is sweeeeet.

yeah that sports channel is surprisingly ok!