It was the best thing I’d watched in 1996 — those first few flashes of intelligent life disrupting the static on my family’s TV. I was literally at the edge of my seat, deliriously awaiting my finally making contact with the world out there. My memory of the day we got cable is as clear as that first CATV-transmitted image I’d seen: one of ancient Channel [V] VJ David Wu introducing, with animated background and all, Metallica’s video to Enter Sandman. At that moment, the surly cable guy who smelled of dried sweat and battery acid had turned into a holy missionary, saving a heathen like myself from a life of after-school noontime variety shows and replaying the VHS copies of Friends episodes my sister had smuggled in from the States.
Back then, having access to imported programming was just as status-heightening as shopping for PX goods at the Subic Bay Freeport Zone (oh, to be one of those little brats strumming their remote controls with Reese’s-smeared fingers). The prospect of having over 70 channels at your disposal — even if, okay, Arirang and Mother Angelica on the Catholic channel were left unviewed — felt excessive.
Until now, of course, when the once-liberating act of channel surfing feels like you’re wading in a kiddie pool.
Remote Controlled
Why be limited by your clicker’s 10 digits and a network-dictated schedule when a click or two through the Net could have that just-aired-in-the-US episode on your desktop in no time? And even if you’ve been having enough of a life not to follow the hype of that new actor’s actor-headlined period series, there’s no reason to have nothing to “show” for during water cooler conversation. Not when you’re a quick search away from every show imaginable, not to mention per-episode spoiler and soundtrack. Today, primetime is really our time, at your leisure and liking, and enough to render that ol’ television set a real idiot box.
Things had certainly changed when our go-to Muslim micro-entrepreneurs for all films unreleased had taken up series-speak. “Series! Series!” they yelped from their counters, displaying bundled dibidis packaged in elongated, plastic-wrapped sleeves and baring either copy-pasted or absurdly written synopses. It only meant that through the all-day-giveaway that was the Internet, the world was watching the same thing — enough for the nine-year-old proxy manning Al’Hamimi’s stall to know exactly who won Cycle 5 of America’s Next Top Model.
In fact, by the mid-aughts, the Net’s making everyone hyper-exposed to everything culturally disseminated soon made me feel like I was drowning in a sea of what to see. Between 2007 and the end of 2009, six series’ were on rotation in my DVD player. Soon, there wasn’t even the trip to your friendly neighborhood piracy complex to regulate your cultural consumption. My anxiety in making sure I nurtured each of my shows was only exacerbated by more recommendations — from critics and colleagues alike — that could now be viewed instantly through on-the-platform-premises streaming.
It’s come to the point where “What are you watching?” is just as essential in conversation as “How are you doing?” or “What’s new?” And yes, there was always something new — always a Friends alum persevering in that critically-acclaimed show you weren’t watching; always a modern take on a classic (90210, 21 Jump Street); always something “real” to counter whatever hot drama the teens and moms were into (The Real Housewives of whatever). While you’d once have to catch things on TV, you were now scrambling to download the latest episode of that buzzed-up new series. Until we decided, “Why wait for a show when you yourself can be the show?”
View-Topia
Enter YouTube, the see-now, see-all site that would turn the self-ruled state of stardom into a democracy whose jurisdiction included the world. Justin Bieber, proof of YouTube’s replacing the boob tube and its power, couldn’t have said it any better: “Me and my mom used to watch (American Idol) when I was little and we were like, ‘I could get on there, you know.’ When I turned 16, I might have went and tried out, but (YouTube) was faster.” YouTube declared exactly what its name suggested: that we were undeniably in charge of what we saw. All networks could do, really, was whimper “copyright” and struggle to keep their own content to themselves, sites like HBO Live cataloguing shows past and present for subscribers. And while even The Science Channel had tapped a guy like the creator of The Sims games to get audiences more involved with its shows, others took the interactivity element a notch higher through immersive media.
If cultural consumers could now actually touch intellectual property via their iPads, then there was little of a boundary between the viewer and the viewed. Storylines, for example, should be able to be manipulated, as in Pedro & Maria, the bilingual telenovela MTV is set to air this year. In “choose-your-own-adventure” manner using Facebook or Twitter, an audience can determine the title characters’ spit-swapping soundtrack or even the interloping of a slutty third party for a little more drama. More prompt perhaps are the interactive videos on YouTube, clips as games offering up links to click as courses of action.
Even a studio audience — those watching live — would be set free through the concept of a TV party. A web show for counter- and sub-cultural magazine Dazed & Confused, the Dazed TV Party allows the program formats of live performance and talk show to lazily copulate together, and the goth-punk scenester crowd watching the spectacle to amble around with pints of beer in hand. Like a nonchalant bystander, the camera can be following the conversation between D&C’s lit editor and a Brazilian model, then head to a stage where Florence & The Machine is playing — and where the words “No Boundaries” are flashed against the back wall. It’s an apt phrase; the lines of television have become so blurred today that, wherever we are, we can watch an anything-goes show brought to our laptop screens by an offbeat magazine.
For myself at least, no boundaries in viewing had become overwhelming. It was only ‘til a couple of weeks ago, turning the TV on in my hotel room after nearly two years of having abandoned my own, that I rediscovered the comfort in kicking back the classic couch potato way. Once again, I was glued to Channel [V] and its nostalgia-inspiring stream of ‘90s videos, relishing the ease of being driven around by this old thing called programming. Except that when classics turned to K-Pop, this passenger became restless.
An effective time sucker or informant: this is what traditional TV still was. But it was pointless to deny myself all the choice that was out there. Despite its magnitude, we weren’t just treated to media that was immersive but had the convenience of an integrated media — where reading a magazine article might influence your downloading a show; or where a show you may have caught on the boob tube gets you to YouTube another episode. Think of it as building a virtual identity through media. Despite its immensity, we can start from where we like what we see and go from there. Never has there been a time where we really are what we watch — where it’s you who decides what you’d like to see. The best thing about that? You can also decide when you’d like to step away.
Go to www.sqwander.blogspot.com/2011/02/hearing-aid-for-our-times/ to read about how we can become evolved listeners after the free music gold rush.