Inspired by this EPIC ARTICLE about how Buffy "ruined" the posters life, I have too have since decided to list the 5 ways my television viewing habits "ruined my life"... and then the 5 reasons television has changed my life, made it better and continues to make it awesome.
1) I watched so much television as a kid (ahem, ahem the aforementioned Buffy) that to this day I can still quote random episodes of Buffy (tell you the season it was from, the name of the episode and probably the next line, who said it and the context), the other night at dinner I made a super random, obscure and somewhat incomplete reference to Full House... (the best part being my roommate knew exactly what I was talking about, but this isn't about her viewing habits). I am literally a walking encyclopedia (props if you know how that is actually said) of 90's, early 2000's television. I can name random things like who won the emmy and for what during certain years, I can tell you random details of many an Olympic broadcast from that time.
Ya know what I cannot tell you? A damn fact I learned in AP History! Sure I learned a lot of other things that stuck with me (how to not procrastinate, how to pick up on minor themes in complicated literature, how to have an actual full out debate with a classmate about said minor themes, time management, how to do something right the first time etc.) but as far as actual facts, and dates and people go? Not. A. Damn. Thing. It should come as no to surprise to you that I got a 2 on the AP History exam. An exam that cost my parents something like $76 they probably didn't have to spend on a test that I was destine to fail. My head is (and continues to be) full of random, useless TV facts, quotes, episode titles, song lyrics, cast lists, random imdb facts that no one ever really pays attention too, but come facts and details I learned, or rather heard, in AP History? Not one thing comes to mind at this point in time. And other than the dreaded AP exam, I did pretty well in the class, was I at the top... no. Was I at the bottom... also no... but years later I got nothing.
2) I secretly hoped my senior prom would be some "perfect high school moment" and it would be all the glitz and magic I saw on TV. I would have an amazing pink dress, and while the lead up to my prom might have been something of a disaster (see Buffy, Dawson's Creek, Saved by the Bell, Dj's senior prom on Full House (not Steve's!), and for that matterShe's All That) the actual night would be amazing, and somehow everything would turn out the way I had always dreamed.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but that's not what happened. Though to be fair, my HS did have the prom in the gym, so that was sort of like TV. Thank God, I have awesome friends who were there, otherwise it would have been even worse. For starters, my amazing pink dress? Was a not so amazing homemade salmon colored dress...(long story short I had bigger than DD's so nothing I could find in stores would fit without massive alterations and my mom just lost her job a few months previous so...) that still didn't fit right. My hair frizzed, my dress didn't fit right and my mom and I spent all afternoon trying to figure out how I could wear it without the aforementioned bigger than DD's wouldn't fly out all over the place. I missed the pictures my friends all gathered together to take at another friends house (though they all showed up on my doorstep an hour later to make sure pictures could still be taken) everyone had a date but me, my purse didn't match my dress, the food was icky, and the bracelet I wore made it so halfway through the prom my arm started to itch and turn red with what I remember to be hives... no perfect prom moment there.
3) In a world before DVR, and little sisters who would sometimes hit the wrong buttons on the VCR so things wouldn't get recorded, I sometimes didn't go out when invited so I could watch my favorite shows. In fact in 2004, I spent all 16 days of the Olympics at my house watching them with rapt report...I couldn't get enough, it was summer vacation the last couple of weeks of summer... and I didn't want to go out! I wonder if I alienated people in this process? I wonder if this is now why I'm sometimes way happier to sit at home with my cats and watch TV then venture out into the loud crowded sometimes sticky and always expensive bars in the city I call home. I love the idea of coming home from work sitting in my snuggy with my cats and watching reruns of Law and Order SVU, America's Next Top Model and Cupcake wars... I also love that idea on a day off!! It might even have made me a bit lazy!
4) I sometimes cannot fall asleep without background noise and the glow of a faint tv/laptop/computer/iphone screen... I've apparently become accustomed to ever present sound of TV. Also, because of this I have the attention span of a small child and cannot sit still at all, ever and have a hard time paying attention to one thing at a time (as I write this, the TV is def on next to me)
5) My TV viewing habits are costing me money. I subscribe to Netflix, Huluplus, Direct TV with HD DVR... and I am currently considering upping my tier with Direct TV for ONE (kind of an important but still ONE) channel. In fact those same Olympics in 2004 cost me money too, not because I had to pay for them, but because in order to get cable before the Olympics I had to pay the $100 installation charge, had I waited till after the Olympics when the next available appointment actually was, it would have been free installation. I was a broke student at the time.
Now a days when the economy is a mess, and I still work in an unpredictable industry, these seemingly little expenses are probably not a necessity.
So, there you have it folks, my TV habits have made, dumb, delusional, antisocial/lazy, ADD, and broke. Just like scientists and parents have been saying for years!!
However, in all reality, TV has actually made my life better...check bac tomorrow for how!
