Day Seventeen: Say no to TV snobbery

You do not watch our programme?! Prepare to die!

 

I knew my weekend was far too laid-back…

So, Saturday’s blog is a cheat. This is a piece I wrote for mX (published on Tuesday 24/09/13):

 

What I’m about to say will either make you shrug nonchalantly or spit your soy latte all over this page: I don’t watch Game of Thrones. If you are in the latter camp, I usually feel like I have to apologise, or, at the very least, shrug and shuffle my feet like a child caught in a lie. I find myself constantly the victim of TV Snobbery. It’s a state of mind adopted by those who believe they have stumbled upon (after they’ve no doubt been told about it by friends/Facebook/Oprah) the greatest television series in human history.  It started in high school, when everyone, like, ever was watching The OC. Entire conversations were shut down because I couldn’t say who was prettier out of Marissa and Summer, or whether I preferred Seth’s witty charm to Ryan’s smouldering bad boy-ness. (For the record, I’m a Seth girl.)

“You DON’T watch The OC?” friends gasped in mock (actually, quite possibly real) horror. “What do you even do with your life?”
Clearly, nothing worth discussing. At that age, I tended to eat dinner, do some homework (you know, that thing we’re supposed to do?), and, most shockingly, engage in face-to-face conversations with members of my family. Or watch obscure British dramas on the ABC. Eventually I caved, vetoed my totally embarrassing 9pm bedtime, and endured three seasons before screaming for mercy (thank god the fourth season was a stinker).

Again and again, the TV Snobs have caught me out. I never saw True Blood, didn’t catch Breaking Bad, and I can’t tell you what happens in The Walking Dead beyond the first episode (something about zombies). The fact that well-meaning friends feel alternately sorry for and angry at me is really their problem. I’m more than open to checking out an episode or two in the fourteen seconds of free time I have each day if they want to lend me the season, but not if it’s offered in a way akin to “let me get you some shoes, you poor thing”. I’m sure the show is fantastic, but I am not a third-world TV orphan, begging for DVDs on street corners.
“But you HAVE to watch it; it’s the best thing since sliced bread/the light bulb/multiple orgasms.”

All I can say is that this too shall pass. The all-important series finale will air, I’ll avoid Facebook for roughly three days until the furore dies down and the cries of “Spoiler Alert!” begin to fade. Those of us with uncool TV habits will be left to our own (deeply lame) devices. Hell, maybe we can even have conversations about, like, world news or something! Or catch up on Neighbours. What? You don’t watch Neighbours? What do you even do with your life?

My biggest problem remains that my TV viewing is based largely around what my mother is watching at the time. If Midsomer Murders or every season of Law and Order ever become cult classics, I will laugh it up Joffrey-style (am I saying that right?) from my Snob throne.

I’ve decided that the best defence against TV Snobs is to praise them for supporting the arts, and ask where they bought the box-set. If they do the old shrug and shuffle, they very likely downloaded all four seasons via torrent. Check and mate.

 

 

(Also, yes, I am aware that since I’m now reading Game of Thrones, it will logically lead to my watching the series… but I’m OK with it because by then it will be so old it’ll be uncool, right?)

 

TB