"I don't even own a TV"

oh lol microwaves

which is why I said upthread it is increasingly becoming a strawman

Are the people who complain about "I don't even own a TV" also becoming a strawman or are there as many of them as ever?

I thought we were olds here on ilx and used that archtype as a cultural shorthand

I also assumed the people who really hate that it's shorthand
1. do not own televisions
2. think people using a trope are directly attacking them

along with the idea that television was going to ruin film, that movies released straight to vhs were all garbage, that television content was going to rot your mind, and that original television programming lacked some kind of artistic integrity that film has or had

― have a nice blood/orange bitters cocktail (mh), Monday, March 31, 2014 4:39 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Most straight-to-vhs movies were pretty bad, watching a film with commercial breaks is a miserable experience, and original television programming was also often artistically harmed by the medium in the days before premium cable. The arguments against television back then were medium-oriented. It wasn't "nothing about this can be good because it's popular," it was "it's hard to write a good drama that gets interrupted every several minutes with a cereal ad." I don't think there's anything particularly snobby about that, everyone hated commercials.

if you were looking for a strawman in the thread about people whose vocabulary is entirely made up of pop culture references I have a better candidate

my thought on this is that our society is, for whatever reason, unable to cope with someone not engaging in a behavior that 99% of people engage in-- even when that person is not hurting anyone else. See: people who don't own TVs, people who are vegetarian/vegan, people who choose not to drive, people who are transgender, etc. We just HAVE to ridicule those people as wanting to be different and annoying.

― Poliopolice, Monday, March 31, 2014 4:12 PM (21 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i think this is otm. plenty of people i grew up with simply see any of these things as "people being trying to be different for the sake of being different, which is annoying". not saying ILX is like this re: transgender folks but loads of people are

Also the activity of Watching Television as in getting some snacks and just spending a few hours a night on the couch watching whatever the fuck came on. Getting rid of television for me was very much about that, much as I don't keep certain foods in the house that I'm bound to overeat.

i dont even have a tv, myself, so definitely the 2nd

I don't even eat food

I can think of people who have about eight zillion slasher flicks on vhs. Who cares if they're "bad," they're just not for you and they're not wrecking your culture.

As for the commercial-supported media thing, people painted premium cable channels with the same brush, as far as I remember. My family /didn't even have cable/ though so I might be misremembering.

(There was also an anti-elitist thing about not having cable television, back in the day. I remember kids with cable not understanding how you had television without a subscription.)

Watching shit is cool, i think we can all agree on that.

people gave me this kind of shit for not drinking soda when i was little

"you don't even drink coke?"

This entire thing might be a completely different beast in the UK, where there's that television fee or w/e. In the US, you could just plug a television in with no fear of getting busted for not paying your television fee. I can imagine there being a harsher divide if you theoretically had to prove you weren't leeching off the public by dodging a tax.

And people stealing cable television were ripping off corporations people generally painted as greedy and incompetent, so they were _sticking it to the man_

"I don't play video games" is probably an analog in the geek world

yeah non-licence holders in the uk routinely receive threatening letters from the govt as it's assumed everyone watches tv

that is a completely diff culture than the US

its more about how they dominate the room than the shows that are on them

I'm an IT bod. I do not play videogames, do not quote Hitch-hikers', would not recognise a Matrix reference...

I do watch TV though.

i own a projector

And the people who get annoyed when i say i dont have one, what business is it of theirs - it was them that started the conversation about some show or other, not me

If my coworkers are talking about some church-related activity, I don't say "I don't even go to church, I'm an atheist"

then I tell them I totally vape, though

http://utopiaorbust.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/vlcsnap-1561484.png

even if they ask you how church was today, you just lie and told them you're still in the second season?

people don't say "i don't even own a tv" anymore they say "i don't even own a tv i watch everything on the internet" but imo that is still an indefensibly snobby thing to say cause you're telling me you probably don't watch baseball or SVU marathons

jk i do both those things on the internet now

do people ask you, unsolicited, what you think of a particular television show?

I'd probably just say that I don't watch that show. I think judging people for owning/not owning a television is odd, but I recognize that it's seen as a status quo of sorts and I don't want to turn television ownership, churchgoing, or anything else into a discussion or judgment, so I just avoid talking about them.

I'm also an outlier in that I'm a 30-something guy who is unmarried and has no children in the middle part of the country, but I don't go around saying "I'm not even married" or w/e.

they say what did you think of doctor who last night

I don't watch doctor who, was it good?

what?

and i say i dont know i dont even have a tv and then they're annoyed im like well i never wanted this conversation i believe in silence in the workplace

see, the real problem there is you hate small talk and shut it down by doing this television statement

i ask ppl if they own a tv as a pre-emptive move, at the bus stop, wherever, i just drop the bomb in advance, then walk off before i get an answer. they're all cunts anyway.

and then some other time theyll say what did you think of this other show and i never heard of it, and i think about different ways of saying i dont even have a tv why are we having this conversation again, i thought bv saying i dont even have a tv you wouldnt come back and ask me about some OTHER show, because i dont want to offend them but in the end i just say sorry i dont even have a tv again maybe they'll stop it with the tv show questions eventually idk

i don't even own a speedboat

I have a tv but I don't have broadcast signal or cable service, so find it hard to succinctly get across my superiority wrt this device/medium

people have never asked me unsolicited, what I think of a particular television show, and never have, not even when I worked in an office with watercoolers and awkward small-talk. it's a myth... isn't it? or did I miss out?

lol

negative strawman, bold move

idk on other hand seeing as they start the whole tv conversation thing because seriously what person without a tv starts a tv conversation....well then maybe they know i'm going to say sorry i dont even have a tv so they want the annoyance because they enjoy judging and looking down on me because of it, and when you put it like that who am i to spoil the fun

I think I have only seen that in that "God Bless America" movie in the last few years, in its satirical takedown of american culture, so it is possibly a thing people do

i haven't even seen "God Bless America"

we need your country, class, and social status to really make a call here, cog

I'm guessing UK by the Doctor Who ref

actually, im a european atheist myself

darragh on fire

The weather? I don't even own any sensory organs.

I don't think ilxors kvetching about people being strident about their lack of tv ownership and cog's obnoxious coworkers being judgmental about the same are coming from the same place

v fancy worldview darraghmac, kudos

oh my parents brought me up that way actually, they would never allow god in the house. in europe.

a person can be judged by different groups of people from different attacking positions, perhaps it would be simpler if i just got one