Remember when television was entertaining and even educational? There were limits and it would finish at the end of the day. The US would have the national anthem and flag in the wind and the UK would have God save the Queen with her during a Trooping of the colour parade.
It really sucked after coming home from the pub to get that. I'm awake why isn't the TV?
The few TV shows on television meant you would be forced to do other things in the real world. Television would have 'events' such as Roots, The Thornbirds, V and Salem's Lot. The buzz about Stranger Things or Game of Thrones doesn't complete as it's everywhere, even Comic Cons are a regular thing.
Water cooler talk can be about anything these days. Sports fans talking about games hasn't changed though :::yawn::::
We retrained our brains to become television minded and addicted as TV shows became more and more and all night. There is no longer a beginning and an end to TV.
No watershed in which the more adult shows are shown when kids are in bed. You can get up in the morning and watch Rambo slaughtering whole armies with an M-60 as you eat yer cornflakes before school.
In the UK Children had news shows that would explain the news to them, there were science shows like How, Tomorrow's World and in the US Bill Nye was the science guy.
Cable TV said there would be no commercials because people paid for it ... they lied. There are even whole channels devoted to selling you things. The cable packages are set, you get shite with one or two good channels. More choice with less choice.
The Sci-Fi channel showed less and less Sci-Fi then became Syfy and notorious for crap low production movies and shows. The History channel showed things like 'The Real' story of the Bible and became the Hitler channel. Wall to wall Nazis and the Alt-wipe went "YES"!
TV got dumb and now in the UK you pay £145 a year for a TV license whether you watch it or not. £145 for Soap operas, reality shows and sport. It has nothing Old Knudsen wants, Sherlock and Dr Who got shite.
I don't mean to be one of those smug people that say, "oh I never watch TV" it just happens that I have standards.
The wildlife documentaries were boring as shite but had educational bits. Old Knudsen got annoyed when he saw a baby elephant of something struggling in quicksand ... just fucken help it out you ghoul of a cameraman!!!
Now with climate change denier Rupert Murdoch owning National Geographic you can expect to see the droopy native boobs replaced with 'Who was Mary Magdalene?' Next up: 'Where Sherlock Holmes grew up'.
The Internet is the same. Back in the day you'd have e-mail forums and groups, Yahoo was a major player. From these communities grew mySpace, Bebo, Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus ... where dreams go to die.
Remember when friends sent you Google Plus invites and you go, um no thanks.
There wasn't much content at the start and now there is too much. Youtuber is actually a job title. Like the reality TV shows that script their drama or shag each other for drama the people on Youtube have to keep out doing themselves. Stopping a bullet with a thick book ????
Some pranks like the bullet one often go wrong. While that stunt killed the book holder others skirt around with casual racism for laughs but when Disney dumps them it isn't so funny. Who would have thought that Disney was picky?
I don't get the reaction videos. Watching someone watching something. Look, someone thinks something is funny, how entertaining.
Fuck plot, dialogue, acting and quality, reality TV has taught us that all that is of lesser importance than what others think.
We've stopped engaging ourselves and investing ourselves in TV in favour for a proxy self. Maybe we feel better that others enjoy things more vividly than us .... fuck that's sad.
Others stare at the screen emotionless only looking at the camera now and then to include the viewer.
Then there is the instant gratification that you matter, that your vote matters ... click LIKE!
Thanks to the brave souls online you don't have to pay for TV shows. Old Knudsen would hate it if he had to pay for some shows that have 5 mins of good stuff and stretches the rest of the show out to 40 mins with lame shit. How many times have you watched The Walking Dead and thought how unsatisfying it was?
I reward decent shows by buying the DVD afterwards. The second season of Dare Devil (not the first) and American Gods for example.
The Internet contains the vast knowledge of humanity ... also a ton of free porn and kitty videos.
That knowledge can be manipulated to show you what some wealthy person or company wants you to see. You search for a story about Hillary and get a load of sites spouting lies but look legit and not just Fox News ... that climate change denier Rupert Murdoch sure has his fingers in a lot of pies.
Then there are algorithms so when you think you are seeing what is actually happening in the world what you are getting is based on every LIKE you've clicked or link you've read.
On Twitter I see the same news article republished 2 days in a row and a couple of times a day. There is no beginning and no end, all this is rewiring our brains and we HAVE to step away at times to maintain our objectivity.
Weaker minds see an alleged expert saying Hillary sold 20% of the uranium in the US to Russia or that she had people killed and they believe it and ignore the facts or how many times it's de-bunked.
Like religion. A well dressed important person and his friends tell me something, who am I to disagree no matter how crazy it seems? ... self worth and knowing your place.
We are no longer engaged and entertained with TV and certainly not by the Internet, we've become click LIKE drones as TV and Internet merge.
With all the content fighting for your attention is all feels like a constant scream. WWIII isn't about to happen, Seattle isn't in range of North Korea but the Internet has you convinced it is until the next week when something else comes along.
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