Jump to content
The Dark Mod Forums

Death of TV: a rant


Fidcal

Recommended Posts

It has been dying for some years but for me TV is now pushed so far into the background its dying moans are almost inaudible. The heyday was the 90's and into the 21st century. Then things went digitally downward. At first I thought it was great. I joined the rush for a box and rejoiced at the flood of new channels. Later I realized these were the decoys of entrepeneurs who invested once-only in a few programs and then repeated them for months and years, sucking in the revenue of the huge market growth. As old viewers turned off; new ones watched the repeats. Until eventually almost everyone had digital, ratings fell, tv companies folded or were absorbed, or rebadged.

 

They had to learn new tricks, and tricks they were. How to pad out 10 minutes of content to fill 30 minutes. How to mask bland material with cosmetic flashy graphics and sounds and how to ruin good material with the same. Johnny one-note on keyboard and bongo Jim on drum were not even human but a chimpanzee on a sound editing keyboard hitting buttons to feed in sound seconds from pre-programmed dvds full of music-like noise loops in order to drown the presenter and interviewee who fought hard to be heard above the din.

 

Would-be cameramen were sent on a 2-week course to learn the rules of of how not to shoot good video:

 

Rule 1. Always, always, try to avoid staying on the centre of interest for more than a few seconds and if possible don't show it at all.

 

Rule 2. Always, always, stay focused on the presenter's face, as close as you can with nostril-cam.

 

Rule 3. Show great reluctance, even terror, to turn away from his nose hairs to look at wtf he is talking about. Viewers are not interested in that. Stay with the face. They can figure it out from his expression.

 

Rule 4. If you have to show content then close in real tight: show the elephant's trunk, his eye, his tail, his arse, but don't show the elephant.

 

Rule 5. Be brief. Be briefer than brief. Do not linger satisfyingly on anything in case the viewer gets bored and changes channel. 0.5 seconds is good. 0.1 is better. Except the presenter. Linger away my friend, linger long and hard. He's the star. The star is king. Content is merely his adornment, there only to glorify him, ironically, to present him.

 

Rule 6. Same as Rule 1.

 

I will only briefly mention the aggressive brain-dead advertisements who gave up on providing good product information long ago. And the intrusive scrolling program promos and of course, the ever-present logo. Well, alright then, I will expand a little on the logo...

 

We're brainwashed into accepting the logo which is, after all, just an advert, a brag-badge for the tv company, a coca-cola sticker gagging Mona Lisa's smile. Should anyone elbow his widescreen and leave a patch of unworking pixels he'd replace that set faster than a cameraman can pan back to his god-presenter. But given a logo of the same size he would accept it without question. Mmm... wonder how many logos per screen Mr. Average would accept if pushed? Maybe with 3D TV we can peer around them?

 

So as more programs become unwatchable for me I am left with very few. One of my favourites sports has been tennis but this has deteriorated along with the rest. If you're lucky you'll get one knowledgeable commentator and one chatterbox to sit at a PC spitting endless trivia: "that's only the 2nd time in 5 years that player X has lost a set in the first 3 rounds of this tournament." "Only 11 players have accomplished this in the history of tennis. I will read them out to you in a half a minute during the next rally so you don't get bored." If you are unlucky then you get two chatterboxes flirting with each other.

 

French TV were a year or two ahead in this mindless game. I recall staring at the back of Serena William's tennis shoes with her name on them for almost two minutes until I suddenly heard the sound of a tennis ball being struck and the controllers switched hastily back from what must have been a still shoe video to the actual sport being played. But this year they surpassed themselves and took it to a new level; bird's eye level actually. Apart from gazing at nobody's nostrils in the crowd we now are treated to pigeon watching: pigeons walking, pigeons fluttering, pigeons shitting - instead of watching the tennis service action which is a tedious interruption. And of course, the repeated shots of the Eiffel tower. Not as an intro or between matches but regularly between pigeon-watching and frequently overlapping the tennis action.

 

Then there is the super slowmo camera designed to show interesting details of the action: the complex service motion, the way a ball spins and curves. What do the control room chimps do with it? That's right, slowmo of a pigeon; slowmo of someone walking (who? dunno. Not even sure he was walking. He might have been dead.)

 

Then there are the endless arty-farty 'aren't we fucking clever' self-indulgent camera shots. "Let's sight along this press photographer's camera; that'll be good won't it?" Well no it won't. Even if you only did it once in ten years that won't make it art. Doing it every ten minutes is downright insane.

 

Back with the good old BBC and the start of the grass court season. Uh oh! Chatterbox ahoy! Uh oh! There's that 'down the press photographer's camera aren't we fucking original' camera shot again. Uh oh! Not the pigeon. Please God no! ... Yes, it's the pigeon. We are actually looking at a pigeon walking along the ground. I think it might be the same one actually. I wouldn't know. I leave that to the tennis experts.

 

But the coup de grace (= a death blow intended to end the suffering of a wounded viewer for trivia lovers) was the superslowsuperslowmo camera shot...

 

I didn't recognize what it was at first. Well, I had muted the chatterboxes and was trying to focus on erm.. let me think .... oh yes, tennis. But a kind of rounded shape rose slowly from the bottom of the screen like a golden toroidal space station. As it rose gracefully into the air a face appeared descending from the top of the screen. Seconds passed as this manoeuvre proceeded to close the gap. As the face's mouth opened my jaw dropped too as I recognized a doughnut was on its way to dock with this surreal planet.

 

My brain was numb as my finger slipped from its customary position on the remote's mute button to the off button. In that moment something died. I think it was TV. I can't even remember who was playing in that match any more. It's actually a relief now. No more tense waiting for those who run the asylum to return from a lengthy lunch break and put the trusties back in their jackets. No more trying to make sense of meaninglessness. Like a great doughnut has been lifted off my shoulders. Like my mind has UNsnapped, cleared. I'm free.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yep. That's why I do not watch TV.

Most of the stuff that comes out is terrible entertainment industry goo. The worst of the bunch is reality television.

 

The small amount of shows, which are okay simply end, because they do not have enough viewers..

 

I suppose the situation is as such because the majority demands it. Or swallows it without complaint. Supply and demand, you see.

 

I always wonder, for example, why do gossip journalism exist? If the most of the people would simply refuse to pay for such 'entertainment,' it wouldn't be economically feasible..

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Reality shows, gossip, chat shows, quiz shows, soaps, where never really my thing but I tolerated them so long as there were other types of program I could enjoy. But now that has mostly gone. There are occasional programs though and maybe one or two decent movies a month. In the past I've printed out from my Digiguide TV guide what I plan to watch during the week. That typically was most of an A4 sheet and sometimes ran to 2 or even 3 pages. This week there were only two programs for the whole of this week - a total of two hours - so I just scribbled them down on one page. Saves on toner.

 

I'm now reading more stuff on the net. Wikipedia and physorg are fairly good. Perhaps one day they will produce WikiTV.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not to lay too much blame but I believe that "Big Brother" came over from your "side of the pond" and started the American Reality TV craze...

 

But shows like Lost, 24, Heroes, Fringe, and House were all born out of a reaction against that genre so it's not all bad...

 

I'm still waiting for something as good as Max Headroom to come along again... (Stargate was almost there...) :(

Please visit TDM's IndieDB site and help promote the mod:

 

http://www.indiedb.com/mods/the-dark-mod

 

(Yeah, shameless promotion... but traffic is traffic folks...)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

And don't forget FlashForward, SGU, Eureka, BSG and all the other wonderful shows that give me at least a little hope that not all hope is lost.

My Eigenvalue is bigger than your Eigenvalue.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There is a lot of crap but there is some good stuff still. Currently:

 

US - Party Down

Australia - Lowdown

Canada - Less Than Kind

 

A few in the 'pop' category...

 

You know, though, that this has always been the case, in music, games, literature, movies... it's mostly junk.

Edited by aidakeeley

"A Rhapsody Of Feigned And Ill-Invented Nonsense" - Thomas Aikenhead, On Theology, ca. 1696

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I haven't watched true television in probably a year or more now. I do still like a few shows, but I just see them on the internet instead if at all. Here's the problem though: while "TV" (as a means) is fading out rapidly, they're simply making the switch to internet television. Watch stuff on youtube now, and you're more likely than not to be subjected to ads. Hop over to hulu, and the only difference between it and television is that instead of 2 minute commercial breaks, you get 30 second commercial breaks. That won't last for long. They will begin the slow creep forward, and people will tolerate it. Slipping further and further, and they'll tolerate it. TV finds its new delivery method. More and more, DVDs (legit purchased and rented) refuse to allow you to skip to the main menu, forcing you to watch warnings and worse, previews. WTF? I rented Sherlock Holmes last week and was forced to watch their movie ads (buyer beware). Yes, that is enough to piss me off and (at least partially) ruin a movie. Warner Bros got a scathing letter and warning in reply.

 

As theaters and TVs become obsolete, they'll just force their way onto your PC.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah...

 

That reminds me of the advertisement scheme for the new iPhone OS... How would you like all your computing devices to be Ad-Supported? (evil)... You wait, people will be running TDM on Windows 8 and they will see Burger King ads in the middle of a mission... :laugh:

Please visit TDM's IndieDB site and help promote the mod:

 

http://www.indiedb.com/mods/the-dark-mod

 

(Yeah, shameless promotion... but traffic is traffic folks...)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

well in england there sky tv once they get their claws into any decent tv program you never see it again unless you pay them 58 pounds a month, they even block you from watching it on the programs makers website, and if you want to watch it online you have to still pay sky tv to watch it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wel, good thing there are torrents, I'd say. Of course, it may not be perfectly legal in your country to d/l episodes and watch them, but at least here it's not illegal to do so. I for one watch all shows this way, because the uber-crappy dubbing takes all the fun away.

My Eigenvalue is bigger than your Eigenvalue.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

They will begin the slow creep forward, and people will tolerate it.

 

First Dan Quayle then Dubya.

First Watergate then Iran-Contra.

 

Most people are already thoroughly conditioned. People are generally told what to like and they eat it.

 

This goes way back; laugh-tracks. WFT are laugh-tracks?

 

An insult. An absolute, dead-on, in-your-fucking-face insult, is what they are...

"A Rhapsody Of Feigned And Ill-Invented Nonsense" - Thomas Aikenhead, On Theology, ca. 1696

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Part of the problem is that TV companies only need compete on 'type' and not on quality of service. Each have a monopoly on each program and monopolies are generally bad.

 

It's like a marketplace where each stall holder is selling something different. Yes it's a free market and customers can buy where they want but there is only one guy selling fruit; another only selling jeans; another mobile phones. The fruit guy insults you, his prices are high and the fruit poor. What you gonna do? He's the only one selling fruit.

 

On TV there is an old sitcom repeat on one channel; a political debate on another; and a movie on a third. You want to watch the movie but it's spoilt by adverts every ten minutes, a bold logo dominates one corner, and as you sit deeply moved by the dramatic ending an oily-voiced hyena cuts off your immersion through the shrunken end credits to tell you what is coming up next. I am not free to watch that movie on another channel with a better service.

 

Possibly part of the solution might be if program producers offer all their output to quality-regulated internet sources and the viewer chooses one independent net TV website out of dozens to request any available program. TV companies become the middleman without any monopoly on any individual program. They can only compete on quality of presentation and service while program producers have to meet a set quality target or they won't be in the main market.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not to lay too much blame but I believe that "Big Brother" came over from your "side of the pond" and started the American Reality TV craze...

 

Big Brother actually started in the Netherlands; so the same side of the pond but not specifically a British invention.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've been conditioned by American Idol, The Weakest Link, and The Office to believe all shows originate in Britain... :laugh:

(among my many other foolish misconceptions and stereotypes... but I can't be as bad as Danger Mouse's view of the USA :laugh:)

 

(my brain is wired like predictive text... I keep typing out incorrect words...)

Edited by nbohr1more

Please visit TDM's IndieDB site and help promote the mod:

 

http://www.indiedb.com/mods/the-dark-mod

 

(Yeah, shameless promotion... but traffic is traffic folks...)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

While the general t.v. show isn't that great, and they can never have the cultural relevance that something like the Simpson's or M*A*S*H had in its day, I feel like there have been more individual good shows in the last decade than before -- BSG, Firefly, Mad Men, the Office, Castle, all the HBO or similar shows, The Wire, Deadwood, Six Feet Under, Carnivale, Rome, The Tudors. I can always watch a Law & Order episode (but then I'm a lawyer). All of the Discovery / History (/ Science, Military, Animal, NatGeo, Travel ...) channel type shows have really come of age this decade. Even the effing weather channel has that cool "When Weather Changed History" show. And if you're into anime, that's come of age this decade too, from Cowboy Bebop to Haruhi.

 

I think tv is having a kind of golden age these days, but rather than big dazzling gems, it's broken into 1000s of little shards, some quite brilliant in their own little way but buried in some distant channel and far away time-slot for only the chosen few that stumble on to them. How many people ever saw Master Blasters? But I loved that show. And I never heard of Mad Men until last week but it's been pretty cool for a while now.

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There have been some GREAT programs over the last decade and still are. Problem is that things are changing so average quality is decreasing and presentation style is generally moving away from what I can tolerate. This means that programs I would love to watch I no longer can and that is a bitter pill to swallow. This is new. This didn't happen years ago. Years ago a program either had content I was interested in or it didn't. Now there are programs that do interest me but are unwatchable. That is what is different.

 

I used to watch how skilfully an expert pruned a vine in the peace and tranquility of a country garden. Now I can only listen to what he is saying as I stare at his grinning face with a logo over his eye and occasional one second pans at what his hands are doing while violins screech through the same noise loop.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Cheaper camera techniques and set costs... I see your problem...

 

Not unlike the complaints against "next-gen" 3D engines that use Bloom, Motion Blur and DOF to smear away almost all detail... They take shortcuts everywhere... :angry:

 

(I had a bit of this feeling when I watched the Star Trek "reboot" movie...)

Edited by nbohr1more

Please visit TDM's IndieDB site and help promote the mod:

 

http://www.indiedb.com/mods/the-dark-mod

 

(Yeah, shameless promotion... but traffic is traffic folks...)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's probably always been the same. When I was little I could watch almost anything as long as it was a cartoon and I felt like the content in them was hilarious. My point is, when I started university I started exploring movies all the way back from modern to the 60s to see what I could find that would suit my taste. I think I found maybe 10 movies in all that really struck a cored with me. So basically 1 movie every 5 years I thought was great. I feel the TV industry is the same for the most part. They are very concerned with pleasing average Joe rather than exploring new content and taking chances, which from a financial perspective makes sense. It's pretty safe to assume that most people here aren't the standard definition of 'normal' considering we are all fans of a really old game and are in a community of fans who have built a new version :laugh:

 

BTW: Anyone else enjoy Breaking Bad? It's the only TV Drama I've liked in the last five years ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Careful here.

TV is, and has always been, the most powerful tool of mass propaganda that ever was.

Almost everything in TV has purpose, very few things happen by chance.

 

The typical 30 second - advertising spot is by far the most powerful yet most efficient advertising/propaganda tool ever devised.

I could go deep into psychology here, but in a few words: Practically nobody sees himself influenced by ads, but if you scientifically test this almost everyone is hugely affected by it. Frequent mentioning/showing of a brand alone builds unconscious familiarity with it and reliably makes you choose the soda "you already know". That huge CocaCola ad budget really pays off. If people are tested to judge two unmarked soda cans for better taste, its mostly about 50:50, if you attach the CocaCola logo on one of them and some unknown on the other, it's becoming hugely in favor of CocaCola.

Or kids programs: they're loaded with ads for stuff, and sales rocket reliably...

 

Quality of programs is another issue. You want many viewers to sell much ads. Yet, attracting viewers means to offer some content.

Interesting, quality content is expensive to produce. There are just no loads of really good quality stuff to fill the airtime.

Really good stuff is a scarce resource, almost per definition. So why bother with such difficult stuff ?

Most things advertised, that have highest profits, are stuff that mostly idiots want to buy. Perfumes, hight tech yogurts, sugar loaded sodas, fancy washing miracles, ringtones for mobiles, insane consumer credit offers and all that.

The target audience is quite low tier. People with not much sense for quality, be it program or product.

So,why waste resources ? You take the least quality program that gets the stuff done.

Most what those people watch (and buy) should be a personal insult, yet they consume.

 

It's like this:

Smart people watch this stuff for some while; then they are disgusted of the bland content and repetivity and seek out more interesting things.

Dumb people watch this stuff forever, all day, and do hardly anything else until they die.

 

Dumb people are numerous and "good" consumers; if anything is good enough for them it will hardly be improved. It's good enough, doing it's job.

 

The result is that ridiculous TV program. The sooner you notice how bad, distasteful, ad-laden , manipulative uninteresting stuff it really is and stop consuming it the brighter you are.

 

And it's not just ads. They are forming mass consciousness with it too.

I can speak only for German TV here, but shows where bold, righteous German public servants (police, public authority, ...)

battle evil (murders, thieves, drug dealers) are hugely popular, and the states good servants always win.

It's a huge brainwashing that you can trust your beloved government and it's representatives. If you do what you are told, everything will be in order..., the "officials" know best whats good for you and they always find out everything about everyone and always win in the end ... Every "opposition" is presented with an "evil" touch. May have something to do that we are a society of

pensioners here, but you get the drift.

 

Some things are even so ridiculously obvious that it looks hilarious : The "good guys" in German TV are practically ALWAYS driving costly high prestige German-made cars - so that never anyone is able to miss that fact, there are loads and loads of scenes where people get in/out of those advertised cars, or weird ages long takes in which they come along a driveway or whatever to make the beauty of that German car stand out. It's really funny, but few people notice actively.

 

There are other things, like the police in the US has arranged with Hollywood since the 60ies:

Shootings have to be unrealistically portrayed to feed real world crooks with wrong/deadly gun fighting behavior unconsciously :

Instead of taking careful aim when shooting, or moving rapidly sideways in a shooting to lower chances of getting hit back while attacking most gun wielders are portrayed stationary shooting and taking no decent aim, looking "cool" - feeding that self destructive behavior in the brains of real time crooks which copy it widely - greatly benefiting police in thug/police shutouts in the US for example.

The guy who had this idea even got a medal for it back then because it saved so much police officers lives and still does.

 

Another propaganda tool are those "CSI"-like shows: They basically deliver the message that crime doesn't pay and in the end your cool good righteous government and it's employees notice, solve and punish every single crime, with incredible scientific methods nobody has any chance to stand against...

They are airing stuff like that to reduce the crime rate. It's no coincidence, it has purpose.

By making people think "they" will find everything out, know everything, with methods you cannot really grasp, it's better for you to not be criminal and don't try in the first place. It's successful propaganda/"education" that influences a good amount of people.

 

 

And, I somehow see a general dumbing down of TV and big parts of the population.

Decades ago, there was much interesting stuff in TV, like a professor teaching space flight stuff hour after hour, much to "dry" for todays audience. Today, even most documentaries are dumb stuff, leaving you knowing almost nothing more an hour later, like stuff about the greatest bridges or those nice US aircraft carriers and whatnot.

You in GB have a rising Chav problem, and in Germany and France similar phenomenons are sharply on the rise.

 

Some psychology professors/biologists here even predict (on the quiet) that humanity will split up in a more brainy group/subspecies and

a much simpler one, because exponentially accelerating technological and cultural changes/challenges which only a small group of people can handle to their advantage. It's not necessarily that people get smarter, but those who are not so smart more and more ... stand out/behind.

 

Oh god, my afternoon. Almost gone. I tricked my in writing too much gibberish ...

  • Like 1

"Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly while bad people will find a way around the laws." - Plato

"When outmatched... cheat."— Batman

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I doubt I've watched more than 20 hours of TV in the last 10 or so years, and from the sounds of it, I haven't missed anything.

Intel Sandy Bridge i7 2600K @ 3.4ghz stock clocks
8gb Kingston 1600mhz CL8 XMP RAM stock frequency
Sapphire Radeon HD7870 2GB FLeX GHz Edition @ stock @ 1920x1080

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Another propaganda tool are those "CSI"-like shows: They basically deliver the message that crime doesn't pay and in the end your cool good righteous government and it's employees notice, solve and punish every single crime, with incredible scientific methods nobody has any chance to stand against...

They are airing stuff like that to reduce the crime rate. It's no coincidence, it has purpose.

By making people think "they" will find everything out, know everything, with methods you cannot really grasp, it's better for you to not be criminal and don't try in the first place. It's successful propaganda/"education" that influences a good amount of people.

 

My friend worked on a (Japanese) case where a JUDGE thought that CSI-level forensics was possible, and strangely held it against the defendant: "If you were innocent then there would have been some forensic irrefutable proof. But since we don't see any knock-out proof, you don't have a good defense", which first of all flips the "presumption of innocence" burden of proof the wrong way (The prosecutor always has the burden to show guilt beyond all doubt, not the other way around; and if there's no clear evidence one way or another the defendant should always win. Then again, Japan has a 99% conviction rate, so the system is messed up as it is anyway.) The problem here, though, was that my friend (the defense lawyer) had a hard time convincing the judge that CSI-level forensics actually is mostly science-fiction and *most* cases will never have such clear evidence one way or another -- which is why there's a presumption of innocence to begin with -- But apparently it's what many judges like this one seem to wrongly assume from t.v. conditioning, to the great detriment of defendants. (Ironically! you'd think it'd hurt the prosecutors before the defendants.)

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Then again, Japan has a 99% conviction rate, so the system is messed up as it is anyway

 

How inconvenient. One should think a judge has better judgment... It's really surprising, or better said shocking me sometimes, how gullible even persons in more "important" jobs are.

 

Ah, yes, conviction rate. Good old you are indicted you are always (at least somewhat) guilty ...

 

We in Germany have TV shows with police officers which basically advertise: Crime doesn't pay.

For instance, they brag about a nearly 100% shop lifting crime resolve rate, pointing out that shoplifting is hugely stupid and only losers do it all get caught etc. etc.

 

What they are not deem worth mentioning in public is that this shop lifting crime resolve rate is as high because most shop liftings are not even reported because any investigation is futile - only those cases that get the thieves red handed and have it all recorded on tape get even reported ... resulting in such a nice number - representing not even 1% of shopliftings.

"Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly while bad people will find a way around the laws." - Plato

"When outmatched... cheat."— Batman

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recent Status Updates

    • Petike the Taffer  »  DeTeEff

      I've updated the articles for your FMs and your author category at the wiki. Your newer nickname (DeTeEff) now comes first, and the one in parentheses is your older nickname (Fieldmedic). Just to avoid confusing people who played your FMs years ago and remember your older nickname. I've added a wiki article for your latest FM, Who Watches the Watcher?, as part of my current updating efforts. Unless I overlooked something, you have five different FMs so far.
      · 0 replies
    • Petike the Taffer

      I've finally managed to log in to The Dark Mod Wiki. I'm back in the saddle and before the holidays start in full, I'll be adding a few new FM articles and doing other updates. Written in Stone is already done.
      · 4 replies
    • nbohr1more

      TDM 15th Anniversary Contest is now active! Please declare your participation: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22413-the-dark-mod-15th-anniversary-contest-entry-thread/
       
      · 0 replies
    • JackFarmer

      @TheUnbeholden
      You cannot receive PMs. Could you please be so kind and check your mailbox if it is full (or maybe you switched off the function)?
      · 1 reply
    • OrbWeaver

      I like the new frob highlight but it would nice if it was less "flickery" while moving over objects (especially barred metal doors).
      · 4 replies
×
×
  • Create New...