JP Radio: Say It Loud, I Watch TV and I'm Proud

From the second you turn on a tv, it starts projecting light and warmth into your room. The only way you're going to get light and warmth out of a book is if you set it on fire.

@ Graves: hee hee!

I think that the stigma is dead except in some extremely elitist circles. My sister, for example, is getting a doctorate in film studies. She does not watch TV shows, looks down on them a lot. I get TONS of flak from her because I take a strong (even academic) interest in tv shows, and try to tell her that there is a renaissance of TV shows going on right now.

But most everyone else I know watches at least some TV. TV offers a regular opportunity for shared cultural experiences and ongoing discussions about continuing stories and characters. Lots of families I know really appreciate all the good TV on now, because it gives parents and kids something else that they can enjoy together, and have interesting discussions about throughout the week. I work around some people that I have nothing in common with - except the shows we watch, so it helps us find common ground that way.

I guess that I have seen TV (entertainmentwise) become MORE important in the lives of people I know as the programming has become better and more interesting, and I hear less and less complaints that "there isn't anything good on" than I ever did in previous years. And I think that is a good thing - of course TV is not perfect, and one must have a life of one's own outside the fictional universes of stories, but as a medium I think it is reaching more of its good potential. If we could just get rid of FoxNews. . .

The TV-is-tosh stigma will probably never disappear while the medium is in its current state. The only new medium or musical genre born in the last 120 years that isn't looked down on in one way or another by cultural elitists, is jazz. Both movies, rock n'roll, comics, hiphop, videogames, electronic music, the internet and television are all still dogged by the negative stereotypes that have been around since their respective births. The medium of television is in its death throes, though, probably only ten years (or less) away from being eaten by the internet. I'll tack my question on to yours: will television's cultural stigma follow the medium as it transforms?

@ Karlos: Ten years until TV's demise? I'm taking the over on that one. Never underestimate the appeal of just staring at something. On the internet you have to keep clicking around and, like, reading stuff. Way too much effort.

Seriously, I question anyone who claims they don't watch TV. The smartest person I've ever known was my college roommate, a Fulbright scholar who never missed an episode of Real World/Road Rules Challenge.

I think the increase in quality programming has created a different kind of snob -- the TV snob. I have a friend who is just the worst...oh, all right, it's me. I'm a huge TV snob. I look down on anyone who watches reality shows, comedies with laugh tracks and dramas with a "thunk-thunk" noise between courtroom scenes. If you hated the Sopranos ending, I hate you. If you love all three CSIs, I want to pin your eyelids open Clockwork Orange-style and make you watch The Wire until you succumb to its genius. And I haven't finished a book in six months but think watching Mad Men makes me smarter than you. So I am proud to admit I watch TV, but I'm maybe not so proud that I've become such an insufferable bastard about it.

beerbaron: everything in your post is absolutely spot on, I love the bit about life as a TV snob. Pretty close to home, that. What I meant about TV being eaten by the Internet was not necessarily a prediction that TV is going to become the Internet, but more that TV's days as an independent medium might be numbered.
Actually, now that I think about it; TV is going to become the internet, but internet is also going to become the TV. With TiVO and other technological innovations increasingly making TV an experience tailored to the individual's needs, the medium is starting to adopt more and more of the internet's pick-and-choose/long-tail nature. And with Youtube and its ilk, the internet is already the world's favorite TV channel. The lines are blurring - TV might not be dead in ten years, but I'm pretty sure the mutations will be obvious.

(Sorry for straying so far off topic, Mr. Poniewozik!)

JP: our fearless leader and apparantly at least one of his daughters don't watch much tv. Prefer to spend time with colorin' books.

Here in Copenhagen, I end up starting most of my TV-related conversations with "No, Beverly Hills 90210 wasn't all that popular in the States." They get so much crappy U.S. TV over here that I'm beginning to think it's a programming strategy. I mean, '8 Simple Rules' but no 'Arrested Development'? Come on!

As for my American friends, they all admit that TV is indeed having a Renaissance. Yet none of them will invest 59 minutes checking out 'The Wire'. Hmph.