The next medium, whatever it is—it may be the extension of consciousness—will include television as its content, not as its environment, and will transform television into an art form. A computer as a research and communication instrument could enhance retrieval, obsolesce mass library organization, retrieve the individual's encyclopedic function and flip into a private line to speedily tailored data of a saleable kind.
-- Marshall McLuhan, 1962
It took me years to succumb to that nagging feeling that I was actually missing something.
When I first took notice of how intensely television dominated the cacophony of conversations around me, I have to admit I was a little proud of my indifference. While I still owned a 20" Panasonic, I turned it on only in conjunction with my DVD player. I could attribute this habit to the person I thought I was in my twenties-- a would be artist-writer-filmmaker (dilettante) with a penchant for collecting books, reading books, and then reading about the books I still have not read (poseur). Basically, all talk and no game. All I knew was I wanted to be somebody, and since I could never focus on just one thing to be, I'll just refer to the someone I dreamed of being as a fucking awesome artist-- the kind worthy of being mentioned in the same breath as Patti Smith, Bob Fosse, or Stanley Kubrick. I knew that if I was ever going to make something of myself, I could not spend my free time sitting around staring at a television set like some modern day plebeian.
Then, between my twenties and thirties, something revolutionary happened: TV changed in two wonderful ways:
1. TV is no longer static. I no longer have to sit idle and motionless to enjoy it. TV is now available through various media platforms online and I can access exactly the show I want to see by hitting just a few buttons on my smart phone. Now, when I want to catch the next episode of Louie, I can grab my headphones, head to the gym and work out while sweating through two or three episodes of what I deem one of the better comedies on television.
2. TV is speaking a new language. In the past decade or so, television producers have begun to take greater risks on subject matter, characters, writing styles, even the kind of messages being put out there. Television is continually growing more honest, and dare I say, more real. In other words, more interesting and worthy of my time. Through this one significant transformation, those connected, and those in the know through second-hand knowledge, are dealing with an entirely different beast of prey.
Although for years I missed out on many fascinating discussions predicting the last episode of LOST (which I still do not know an iota about) and Don Draper's dark, elusive past (which weirdly I do know a little about since watching seven episodes of season one and pretty much all of the second to last season (don't ask)), I now have access to these shows and a host of others. In today's mediated universe, if I want to devote time to watch a series from beginning to end, I can do so at my own leisure, in whatever connected setting I please.
So is this an improvement over the past? I don't know, but it sure seems to be. At least if quizzed on my knowledge of current pop culture, I now have seen the shows Rome, Girls, Orange is the New Black, House of Cards and Louie. Perhaps one day, I'll be able to participate in a conversation over the water cooler. For now, I am perfectly content watching on my own terms, alone or with friends. I'm glad I've eased up on television. Now if I could only ease up on myself-- but that's an entirely different beast of a blog post.
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