Forum menu
Bragging about no social media is probably more the posture de jour.
I don't have any social media accounts. Well, apart from here, and on a synth forum but no Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc. My wife is the same, except she doesn't even have any forum memberships. I'm 40 and my wife younger so we're not complete oldies.
We do have a telly though. And we watch it.
<div class="bbp-reply-author">binners
<div class="bbp-author-role">
<div class="">Subscriber</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="bbp-reply-content">
I’m just interested…. Can I just ask the ‘I don’t own a TV’ brigade how they consume their grot?
Is it PC/Tablet or do you keep it old school and go rummaging around in the bushes by your local electricity substation for a soggy copy of Razzle?
These days I can only really get off reading badly formatted forum posts whilst an advert in the corner of the screen tries to induce seizure.
Apologies for my slow typing.
</div>
You called?
The problem with TV is that the vast majority of it is shit and it also (old-style) forces you to fit your life round its schedule. Having it on all the time in the corner of the room is grim IMO. It's never been about "I don't watch moving pictures on a screen" for me, I've always watched DVDs and downloads etc before streaming was even possible. Distinction is of course increasingly blurred with digital recorders which enable easy time-shifting (though you still have to remember to record it). I've enjoyed watching plenty of TV shows though not many hours per day.
I have a TV but I rarely turn it on, however I do watch a lot of stuff on Netflix or Prime including subscribing to Discovery and Eurosport. It's just better - I get to watch the stuff I'm interested in and can skip the adverts which turns a 43 minute program into an hour long program.
I'm not sure how not having a TV is something to brag about?
What are the acceptable circumstances to brag about it?
if you live like Chuck McGill off Better Call Saul, but perhaps without the electromagnetic hypersensitivity disorder
#netflixbants
The problem with TV is that the vast majority of it is shit and it also (old-style) forces you to fit your life round its schedule. Having it on all the time in the corner of the room is grim IMO. It’s never been about “I don’t watch moving pictures on a screen” for me,
Yeah the lines seem to be a little blurred here, hence the OP's post I think.
I don't watch TV live as it's broardcast via the aerial, but will watch TV programs streamed or via netflix is really the same thing, just a different consumption method.
When is it appropriate to brag about it? It's not. It's a weird thing to to, to boast about something you don't do. Binners was posting earlier about watching football, I can't stand football but I don't jump on all the football threads to make sure that my lack of interest is noted for posterity.
We always have a moral panic about new medias. All the things we say are bad about TV/social media/games – the notion that they are addictive once used as an escape from ‘real life’ and social interaction are exactly the same thing people said about comic books in the the 1950s and novels in the 1800s.
This. We like to have demons and scapegoats to blame for life's ills (something something brexit something). Our current demon du jour is Facebook and Twitter and their ilk; before that it was computer games, before that television, marajuana, rock & roll, sex, go back far enough and we were burning books. Yet we seem to be perfectly capable as a society to have been turning out mostly well-adjusted adults for decades.
The problem with TV is that the vast majority of it is shit
And this is exactly the sort of comment that the no-TV humblebraggers like to trot out. It's true, yes, that there's a lot of dross on TV. But there's also a hell of a lot of decent viewing to be had, you just need to exercise some quality control. For every I'm a Geordie Celebrity Bake-Off Factor in the Jungle on Ice out there, there's a Breaking Bad or a Blue Planet or an Only Connect.
and it also (old-style) forces you to fit your life round its schedule.
Have you just got here from the 1970s? I've been recording TV shows and watching them on my own schedule since my dad came home one day with a Ferguson Videostar 3V29 and a pirate copy of ET.
These days I can use Sky+ to series link something I'm watching and it'll record every episode automatically as it's aired. The likes of Netflix drop "box sets" where you get an entire season of something in one lump to watch on-demand and there's countless catch-up services like iPlayer. The last time anyone said "oh shit, I'd better get home quickly, Doctor Who starts in twenty minutes!" it was to watch Sylvester McCoy.
Sky+
Alright, Granddad.
And this is exactly the sort of comment that the no-TV humblebraggers like to trot out.
TBH that one ranks as highly as a film review that starts with I turned off after 15 mins.
I don't have a life. Does that count?
I don’t have a life. Does that count?
But do you feel superior about it? I think that's the important thing.
Not watched broadcast TV in years (other than CBeebies, bad parent that I am), but love Netflix and other streaming services. Tend to cancel and start subscriptions based on what’s available on each provider.
When nothing worth watching is on I cut all power to the house and force the family to read and play board games by candle light.
What does it mean if I've watched Dr Who, MOTD and a couple of other things on Iplayer but only about 10mins behind broadcast?
What does it mean if I’ve watched Dr Who, MOTD and a couple of other things on Iplayer but only about 10mins behind broadcast?
Are those the Dr Who episodes which feature the Tardiness?
Are those the Dr Who episodes which feature the Tardiness?
Ba-Doom, tish! 🙂
When is it appropriate to brag about it? It’s not.
Yet the thread was started by someone who does own a TV.
Hilariously, it's the exact equivalent of someone starting a thread to comment on how vegans always bang on about their lifestyle choices.
What's the televisual equivalent of bacon?
What’s the televisual equivalent of bacon?
Peppa Pig?
Only Fools and Horses?
Trotters?
No?
IGMC
I have a chromecast plugged into the telly so I watch Netflix but on a bigger screen with better sound. Can I be smug about not watching telly or do I need to be ashamed?
What does it mean if I’ve watched Dr Who, MOTD and a couple of other things on Iplayer but only about 10mins behind broadcast?
You are an inferior being of weak morals and ethics.
I’m just interested…. Can I just ask the ‘I don’t own a TV’ brigade how they consume their grot?
Off to check freeview listings for grot channel....
they’re nearly as boring as militant vegans
Odd. I've never met a militant vegan, yet an awful lot of people like to complain about them. I think I know which is the more boring.
We've just moved, previous occupants had Sky and no ariel so we've been without "Proper TV" for almost a week now and the complaints are mounting, apparently being forced to watch bakeoff on catchup (firestick) rather than live is an infringement on human rights... I'll be ordering a cheap indoor ariel just to pacify the missus
TBH the smuggness is down to the idea that everyone else is gawping at a telly like idiots while the "TV liberated" are somehow leading richer more fulfilling lives with the extra ~£150 a year a licence would cost... the truth is half of them are just spending the same ~1000+ hours they would have wasted in front of a telly finding work arounds like watching Netflix and youtube on a phone/tablet/laptop and are still consuming "Visual entertainment"...
TBH I'm perfectly happy to pay for a TV, a few hundred quid for a device that distracts the rest of my family giving me time to potter in the Garage or go for bike rides seems like a bargain...
it also (old-style) forces you to fit your life round its schedule.
It really doesn't at all, not in the slightest.
I own a tele, but I don't even have an aerial plugged into it these days, it's essentially a device that I cast stuff to. Which is great, very little to no adverts is marvellous. Largely a mix of youtube, netflix, btsport, a few other streaming services and the occasional bit of pirated content.
It's still watching tele though, it's just different these days. The choice aspect improves things no end rather than flicking through endless channels of crap, I can just go direct to what I want.
If I do watch any terrestrial tele, usually for a specific program, I'll just use their app and cast too.
I’ve never met a militant vegan
I have. One, in my 46 years on this planet. Gobbing off in a pub at anyone who'd listen about how they were all murderers or something. Berk.
I’ve never met a militant vegan
Too weak to leave the house aren’t they?
Gobbing off in a pub at anyone who’d listen about how they were all murderers or something. Berk.
Were they saying you can't be an animal lover if you eat bacon?
I have. One, in my 46 years on this planet. Gobbing off in a pub at anyone who’d listen about how they were all murderers or something. Berk.
Well, I'm 40 so there's time yet. We're practically overrun.
Too weak to leave the house aren’t they?
The old ones are the old ones...
Apparently you can buy vegan friendly condoms. That was news to me, not that I have any need for them you understand. Oh and you can also buy Fair Trade ones.
Love the internet.
>no TV
Easymode
I don't have a computer.
Wrote this with an abacus.
@ransos - I was going to reply but I'm so busy enslaving the bees that I don't have time.
And as we all know, most plants are pollinated by Seitan unicorns, so a bee's sole purpose on Earth is to serve me....Mwah ha ha
I have 3 lTV’s (not sure why) but hardly ever watch any of them 😢 (maybe not since May/June time ?)
and I’m gutted I can’t find the time tbh.
And I feel inferior 👍
(I do often watch Netflix/Amazon/YouTube series on my phone at lunchtime/work though, so it’s not all doom and gloom.)
I have a TV but it essentially functions as a huge 2nd monitor plugged into my PC for streaming and playing racing games.
I've got huge TV, Netflix, Amazon Prime and BT sport. But for instance tonight I had the TV on and read the Chimp Paradox as mentioned in this parish of late.
Good stuff like Killing Eve I watch onthe iPad when traveling. Usually only sport i will stop and watch.
Chicken in the henhouse, when I was a child 1 b/w TV and many siblings.
People being smug about their life choices is always amusing.
But we are in a golden age of TV, albeit much of the running is being made by the streaming services, but by no means all, and thank god we are because Hollywood seems to be obsessed with banal franchises. There is nothing like a quality TV series to do justice to a complex or intricate novel. But it is not only the high end which is well served, there are plenty of guilty pleasures as well - Strictly is a fantastic show.
I hate it now where you get on a train/whatever and everyone is staring at a phone.
i much preferred it when everyone was buried in a newspaper.
But a phone or tablet takes up much less room than a broadsheet. On the very rare occasion I might be on a train, I might split my time between looking out the window or staring at my phone, on which I have a library of over 500 ebooks, so any opportunity to catch up on a book I’m reading, or start a new one is eagerly taken.
1 tv here in living room, radio/Spotify in the kitchen, bedrooms for sleeping....
My thread is much better than this, I just talk about people who are smug and brag. This thread is a bit limited IMHO.
The issue is in AV land we call things we watch stuff on display devices, which includes every possible viewing platform.
So the smug ones have a harder time getting out of it.
I say - "do you have no phone, projector, computer monitor then with no internet, Xbox, iOS, netflix, android access?".
Very few people in that class.
My BiL has two kids, no TV.
To be fair to him he works a 16hr day on the farm, so hardly needs distractions.
His kids however have grown up without a TV. They have an old iMac they play iPlayer BBC4 stuff on but that’s it.
So the kids have grown up without watching cartoons and kids TV, kids films and all manner of interesting documentaries n stuff.
Tantamount to child neglect IMO.
The kids have grown up healthy and happy, but have always sat 4cm’s away from grandmas TV when they are round for supper..and watch..
Anything, I mean Anything.
I feel sorry for them, think they’ve missed out. Certainly when thier mates at school say “did you watch MotD” or “DrWho” .. and they reply.. nah.. don’t have a TV.
Sad.
And pointless.
BiL did once “brag” about not having a TV, but once I’d pointed out all the programs the kids were missing out on, and the gybes from thier school mates he shut up quickly.. muttered something “Yorkshire’ish” and grabbed another slice of cake.
His kids however have grown up without a TV. They have an old iMac they play iPlayer BBC4 stuff on but that’s it.
How is that not a TV?
Having a TV is fine. If you are going to be judgemental then judge people by what they watch. The more people that watch the crap that is produced the more crap will be produced (i.e pretty much everything on ITV1)
I've got a TV but don't use it.
I’ve got a TV but don’t use it.
Hmm, tricky one, I suppose you're only allowed to feel a bit smug but not properly superior.