Undead TV
I’ve been using DVRs for the last five years, starting with Tivo and eventually switching to an integrated recorder that came with the HD cable box. At the same time, the amount of TV that our household consumes has been going down, having recently stabilized around one sports program that we never miss, a couple of cooking shows, and an occasional comic relief with Jon Stewart or Steven Colbert. Needless to say, all of these shows are recorded and time-shifted for convenience, and all commercials are fast-forwarded into oblivion.
A few years ago, New York City banned smoking in all public places. Before that, even if you weren’t a smoker yourself, going into bars and secondhandedly breathing in burning tar with friends that smoked wasn’t a big deal, really - a lot of people did it. I did it, repeatedly. After the ban went into effect, it became a lot more pleasurable to visit restaurants for non-smokers. It also had an additional benefit of making some people think harder about kicking the habit. Nowadays, every time I go into a place where people still smoke while eating or drinking in enclosed space, it very clearly smells bad and feels wrong. How and, more importantly, why did we do this before?
After having enjoyed commercial-free programming thanks to DVRs, every live TV show that gets interrupted by ads feels like walking into a bar full of cigarette smoke: to a non-smoker, it is repugnant. I am not there for the tar or commercials, but for the food and content. Live TV, you are dead to me.
