Our Television Culture

We don’t watch “TV”.

Let me clarify: we have a television and watch sitcoms and drama on DVD. We do not have cable. We do not channel surf. We do not sit for hours in a vegetative state while corporations create insatiable desires of luck, looks and fame in our minds, softened by the fusillade of photons and sound waves omitted from this venomous contraption: the television.

No, we don’t watch “TV”. Our television is purebred—unadulterated and cozy.

What pours from advertisement-laden cable is a venom, an asphyxiation of culture and verisimilitude. This toxin creates throngs of zombies each intent on being better at being the same. It’s a race for assimilation. The organizers play a continuous game of “monkey in the middle”. At each toss the stupid mass scurries, groping for the prize, grunting and waiting for the release of the reward. Very quickly, however, the gratification wears off and the ball is hocked to another part of the field.

Few break this amoebic orbit and de-venom their sets. A harsh realization that that they voluntarily armed their televisions, much like the U.S. armed Iraq. We had the best intentions, didn’t we?

Surrounded by my peers at work, a group of people ages 22 to 28, I feel increasingly alienated. Every other day someone asks, “Have you seen the commercial where suchandsuch happened?” When I say no, quite often I receive a surprised response. How could I not have seen it? It’s on every channel!

When I tell them that I don’t have cable and interesting chain of reactions takes place. First, their eyes dart across my face to see if I am joking (I am quite the sardonic twit). Sometimes I’m shown a sliver of pity, as if I cannot afford the fifty dollars a month for a basic cable package. Then, a brief twitch of anxiety pinches their eyebrows together when they realize the truth. Why would someone choose not to have cable? (Certainly a question Plato and Socrates would have debated if they were alive today.) That I have opted-out of such an all-inclusively exclusive club is unfathomable. It’s strange. It’s foreign. It’s an insult.

And as much I would like to be a part of my own culture, I’ve come to view it as being completely devoid of substance. I choose to stand outside the circle. I like it here.

I don’t mean to attack anybody who watches cable. I’m just frustrated with the ambiguity of our culture, the blurry separation between one person and another. More focus should be spent on the arts, on life, out in our real environment. We should focus on the things we love, not on what passes the time. When my generation asks the question “Where did my youth go?”, they will be a very sad lot indeed.