On how I watch practically no television.

Ever since second grade I haven't been allowed to watch TV during the week, or - on the weekends - during the day, until six o'clock, and in the mornings from eight to ten. Friday nights go to football games, Saturday nights I make plans, and Sunday nights I do homework, and don't even have the time to watch TV. So as someone who's week goes on without being interrupted by television beyond some serious and some sensationalist daily news, I am apathetic to whether or not you choose to watch. The only TV shows I really care to watch anyway are Degrassi (which I don't get the channel for) because despite its soap-opera-like style, I think it actually does take situations that could realistically happen to teenagers and give them realistic solutions, even though half of that would NEVER happen to me. I adore watching The Nanny with my mom because we find it incredibly amusing and witty. I also watch Glee, although I couldn't say why. I actually HATE Glee for a variety of reasons, which if I took the time to write them out would take up the majority of this blog. I also HATE Disney Channel. But that's an hour-and-a-half-long rant, not a blog.

I hate advertisements most of the time, but the fact is that advertisements pay for TV. That's all there is to it for me. I just leave the room when I see them on unless I need inspiration for a gift idea, in which case I'll take my chances with the newspaper ads first.

Because of the fact that I don't watch much TV, I could care less about award shows, but I also don't hear announcements about Nobel Prizes and honors like that, so I can't speak of either and the fact that more people watch award shows than hear about the Nobel Prizes and the like. However: if it's sad that people watch more award shows than Nobel Prizes, what does it say about people like me who don't hear about either?

I hate the parental response of "You think this because you saw it on TV" because it insults my belief that I am a strong-minded-enough individual to see past the sensationalist "real-life situations" on shows, but I think there is some merit to the idea that TV shows that try to emulate real life could leave some kind of subconscious scar. All the geeky kids dress the same way and therefore this style of dress is geeky; all the fat girls are unpopular and therefore you can't be popular if you are or are friends with a fat girl; all the actors in zit/clothing/makeup commercials are happy and skinny: try to look like them and think zits are unnatural; all the successful relationships you see are confined to a certain stereotype and so you look for that kind of thing in real life; all the black kids act ghetto, and so if you act ghetto you act black. The kinds of things you see on TV, I think, and you are entitled to disagree, do set a standard for what you expect in real life to a certain degree, and altering your expectations by mindlessly watching TV doesn't help anyone except companies wanting you to buy into them.

Then again, maybe I'm just a cynic.