It’s funny, when you don’t watch TV, you suddenly realize that you’re the odd-man out. I never watched “Seinfeld”, or “Frasier”, or “Friends”. I skipped “The Bachelor”, “Survivor” and “Big Brother”.
I certainly don’t want to sound elitist (lord knows I’m a complete tool), but seriously how can you people watch this stuff? American Idol? Make it stop.
We went to dinner and drinks at a Cuban bar over in Palo Alto last night for Ines’ birthday. Once the subject of “The Bachelorette” and “Joe Millionaire” came up, I was completely stumped—everyone at the table knew all these characters by name. They went into elaborate details explaining why so and so was a whore, or such and such was a creep.
Maybe I’m missing something here. But I just don’t see the attraction. It’s all such bullshit.
I’ll admit to watching the “Real World vs. Road Rules” on MTV, but it’s really only because I met Christina (who I thought was completely gorgeous), and shortly after started reading Lori’s blog. In fact, at this point the only reason I’ll watch it now is because of all the back-story and editing inconsistencies that Lori points out. After reading her stuff and then watching the show, it strikes me as really amusing to see just how completely edited and staged the whole thing is.
Maybe this is why I’m such a nut for reading blogs. Maybe it’s my own form of reality entertainment. Why would I want to watch some farce about people being stuck on an island, or some staged marriage, when I can be reading peoples running commentary on their real lives?
Take Gwendolyn for instance. I’ve been reading her blog for the last few months as she’s gone from surgery to surgery. How the doctors fucked up, and how she almost died. How she’s been in pain, and slowly trying to recover, only to realize that she’s going to have to go in for more surgeries. It’s one of the saddest, most haunting, things I’ve ever read.
Or sourbob, and his writings about going through divorce. Or Dooce and her life post-Mormonism. Or Absenter. Or any of the other 30 or so blogs that I read regularly.
Maybe I just have trouble with the whole notion of reality television because it is so fake; and that it’s too heavily edited for dramatic effect and cohesive 30-minute plotlines. That the slow motion, the interview style voiceovers and the music is just too much.
But then again, maybe I’m just crazy.