“Everything is more fun when you’re a rebel”
At The Beat, Heidi McDonald makes what I thought was an excellent point (at the end of her discussion of “My Name is Bruce”):
“As I sometimes allude to during my late night digressions here, I think I liked it better when being a fan involved some kind of revelatory, transgressive or rebellious element and not Wikipedia and the IMDb. But then everything is more fun when you’re a rebel.”
What do you think? Was it better to be a fan when it required a little more fanatacism? I was watching “Lois & Clark” over the weekend, with my DVD sets, and I was remembering a time when I had obsessively taped and labeled the shows as they came on. Now, none of that is necessary. Does that change the experience?
– Matt Price
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Comments
Yeah, TV on DVD is such an amazing, brilliant, yet totally infuriating thing.
I now have He-Man and SilverHawks on DVD, but to sit down and spend a day watching them seems… wrong. So why do I have them?
That said, I’m so happy I can watch Sports Night on DVD in one siting, or the West Wing, or a favorite episode of X-Files or discover new shows or watch the entire season of a show I want to catch up on.
But I do agree. I had this same thought last week or so, in a way.
I was thinking about SNL, and how, in high school, if you didn’t watch SNL that Saturday night, that was it. There was no internet to rewatch it, no youtube, no DVR. So when you came to school on Monday and everyone was talking about Will Ferrell or Chris Farley or Mike Myers, and you missed it… You missed out on CULTURE. You missed out on everything that was great and funny in the world. And not just SNL, but the fact that SNL has become such a “youtube clip” show that the best sketches can be embedded everywhere… it destroys the aspect of Must-Watch TV, but beyond that, it destroys the culture that exists when you’ve seen something that cannot be rewatched.
It’s not just a cool feeling, it’s a superior one, that makes you feel above someone who missed it.
You were able to take part in something special that won’t be seen again.
And now, that’s gone. DVR and on Demand and you tube and Hulu have erased that. And it’ll be on DVD at the end of the season anyways.
I miss that.
Not at all, if anything, it might allow for more time to enjoy your favorite show more.