Comments on Comments, etc

Frankly, I am shocked by the popularity of yesterday's "kill your TV" post. It's eerie, actually. Of course, whenever I get such an influx of traffic due to some fortuitous linkage, I always scramble to find my copy of Strunk and White, and regret not paying more attention in writing class when the teacher talked about sentence structure and punctuation.

Naturally, I feel the need to explain myself and clarify several points. And it just so happens that I fancy sequential lists, so here we go.

On logistics:

1. I will read all the comments and notes. There are a lot of them, so I'll need some time. I'll try to reply to as many as possible. I very much appreciate the humorous links.

2. The atom feed doesn't seem to be working for several people. I will try to fix that over the weekend.

3. I'm somewhat peeved that the link was submitted by Alla, who only learned about reddit when she saw me browsing it last week. Of course, her karma is now astronomical. Meanwhile, Henry has been peddling my stuff on reddit since day one, without getting any props. I have no idea how to enforce this rule, but I think Henry should have first dibs on all future reddit submissions.

4. I am not looking for a new job, and I'm not interested in relocating. Thanks for the offers. However, if you want to send me money, by all means. Checks, cash, money orders...

5. When formulating your expectations about the frequency and quality of future posts, please keep in mind that this is just a hobby. I say this often.

On content and substance:

1. A friend called me this morning, and half-jokingly said that I "started a small revolution." This is absolutely not the case. If you pay close attention to the comments, a majority of them are in complete agreement with me, and they are all essentially from people who already don't watch TV and are quite happy (smug?) about it. As one person recalled, my favorite quote on this matter is from Tom Lehrer, who said "It's not even preaching to the converted; it's titillating the converted."

2. And by the way, the next revolution will not start with a few like-minded college graduates in New York City, or in Boston, being in total agreement with one another. It will start in Arkansas or Louisiana, or some utterly wretched place like that.

3. I saw a lot of notes about violence on television. I purposefully omitted any commentary on that topic, because I haven't yet made up my mind. I tend to be very careful when approaching that issue, because the same arguments that are used against violence on television are often applied to video games, and in the latter case, I happen to strongly disagree. This might be worth addressing in a separate post.

4. The bit about losing weight was mostly for rhetorical purposes, to emphasize the point that even such an ostensibly minor change in a routine was enough to create a significant quality of life improvement. (I especially enjoyed one redditter's comment along the lines of "Maybe I should sign up for cable and cancel it, so that I can lose 5 pounds.")

5. Also, a few notes on entertainment. Nowhere do I imply that you should forsake entertainment. I even mention that there are DVDs of shows and movies available at the library, or through Amazon. My main issue with television really has to do with the inevitable inactivity and passivity of the viewer. The nature of the medium forces the viewer to surrender control (you just sit there, we'll tell you what to think), which in turn creates all sorts of negative repercussions.

6. The problem with television news that I allude to is not a new one at all. In fact, it was thoroughly analyzed by Noam Chomsky in "Manufacturing Consent."

7. Television certainly isn't the only way that one can waste time. Some would say that browsing the web, reading blogs, and playing video games, are all equally terrible modes of counter-productivity. And I agree that you all should be saving the whales and freeing Tibet instead of commenting here, but at least those latter distractions require some sort of activity and interaction. TV seems to be so idle and solitary by comparison.

Finally, I admit that it would be absolutely fantastic to live in a world where everyone is attractive, intelligent, funny, and a Mets fan. And I would love to do my part to bring us all closer to that ideal. But, I'm just a grad student with a day job and a long commute. So please cut me some slack.