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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

TV makes me feel inauthentic

Ellis

09:13 / 09.08.01

Does anyone else ever feel like this? It's a strange feeling, you'll be doing something and then suddenly feel like your acting just like Chandler did in Friends in that episode. Like your actions aren't your own but conditioned into you by TV...

Does that make sense?

09:46 / 09.08.01

Sometimes...but not too often. TV and I have had a break up some time back when it became second to my internet connection. Although TV does comes over and does visit every so often, it's usually for chit-chat like WB cartoons or WWF wrestling. I don't get into it with her regarding local and current events or anything based in considered reality since her "father's" very controlling of what she says. But when I look at the colors in her eyes, it does entertain my imagination time to time.

...um...sorry...

Do the sitcoms that also do better (nielsen ratings / relative conversations with friends afterwards) relate to how they agree more with everyone's common experience...like Seinfeld, I guess. Regarding the same situations or kind of thoughts at least.

But I think we all have this general idea that most people are very much the product of what they see on the tube and that they "believe" it to a degree. Yet at the same time...when you talk with someone...how often do you quote lines from movies? More than you want to think?

(Whispering in the background) ...did somebody say McDonald's..?

Our Lady of The Two Towers

08:48 / 10.08.01

The problem I used to have was playing computer games such as Quake with Win95 as an operating system I got used to saving my game frequently to avoid disappointment when it would inevitably crash. It got to the point where if I did something stupid in real life I would think for a moment 'oh I can just reload from where I last saved it' before I remembered what the crucial difference between life and computer games was.

Ganesh

14:01 / 12.08.01

I had that experience in the early 80s, when I spent five days racing around a maze eating spherical doughnuts, and waiting for my ghostly pursuers to turn blue.

14:12 / 12.08.01

Clyde isn't so bad once you get to know him, but Inky is an asshole.

11:22 / 13.08.01

My brother played Theme Park so much that he actually started sleepwalking and shuffled round the house at night muttering about rollercoasters and staff problems.

It was scary.

11:25 / 13.08.01

played AvP too much one time.
Ended up walking around trying to line people up for a decent head bite. Also a truck reversed and the beeper made me cower in sentry gun terror.

10:25 / 15.04.04

I think this is genuinely interesting in light of the Eastenders thread and i'm going to drag it into the light of day by moving it over to the TV and Film forum.

11:53 / 16.04.04

i found it very hard to express feelings of love to my girlfriend, every so often id think to myself "christ, i sound like a shit film" and then id become aware of what i was saying and id sound more like a film that was trying to sound naturual, before long i would become so distracted by my own syntax that id discover my girlfriend had wondered off and left me gibbering to my self.

13:38 / 16.04.04

has anyone ever heard of a mind trap?
it's one possible result of a bad acid trip, but it's unique to the 90s generation. what happens is that you try to do something, but you get caught in something like a computer glitch: you keep trying to do it over and over but you just end up going back to the beggining.
I have a freind who was tripping for the first time with some freinds on his deck and he had to go to the bathroom, so he went inside, but when he opened the bathroom door, he was back on the deck again. This continued for SIX HOURS before he finally came down from his trip.
doesn't this prove that our generation is deeply affected by television and computers? that our minds have a hard time differentiating between reality and simulation?

00:04 / 17.04.04

I find myself increasingly annoyed by the fact that everything I say seems to some from TV. I don't know if I talked like this before Friends started, but I invariably sound like a cross betwixt Chandler and Eddie Izzard.

But yeah, I've said things and then thought "Hang about, wasn't that a line from ER?" (or somesuch.)

The problem is, how do you know that what you say is what you really feel as opposed to just being the standard TV-Land reaction to a given situation?
(What Would Patsy Do?)

(Yes, I've been drinking. Hence the rambling and the use of the words "betwixt", "somesuch" and "hence".)

00:10 / 17.04.04

Woah, Barbeliths. You're being detourned by The Man. Or reified... or... something.

00:38 / 17.04.04

You can do a TV detox.

One hour a day, for one week watch the TV with the sound turned down. Take notes.

Then after one week of that

One hour a day, for one week listen to the TV with the Brightness turned down (black screen). Take notes.

The after one week of that

One hour a day, for one week watch a commercial channel and make a written note of every time a 'visual effect' occurs. Design a tick-box sysytem, or a chart, something. Every time a cut-to, or a fade, or a zoom, or a burn-to, or a super-imposition or whatever occurs, make a note of it.

Then after one week of that

One hour a day, for one week note down keywords, as they occur to you, while you are watching a variety of programs. Any words that strike you as important or meaningful, words that you feel are stressed, biased, repeated or isolated.

Then after one week of that

Sit in the room with your TV turned off and read through your notes.

Regrettable Juvenilia

14:15 / 17.04.04

Or you could just get a sodding grip and stop blaming the telly for your own obvious issues.

20:24 / 17.04.04

Tv is a demon and fills all who watch it with lint and witty remarks.

20:08 / 20.04.04

haven't watched tv in a long time. all I miss are Late Night With Conan O'brien and that model show. the world kind of seems crazy when you don't watch tv and there's definitely a difference between those who do and those who don't. so stop watching tv, its fucking boring anyways, aren't those fucking comercials enough of a reason to quit, I can't stand them. well thats just me I guess.

23:09 / 20.04.04

I watch TV to give me something to blog about.

Incidentally, it's "TV Turn-off week".

Our Lady Has Left the Building

11:30 / 23.04.04

TeN- I think I've had dreams about what you're describing, most commonly work-related but once I was building a tower or a stairwell or something and every time I finished I went back to the beginning, no idea what causes them but I'm wandering off-topic...