We have a problem, people. A problem with our television sets.<\/p>\n
Actually, I feel no animosity toward the sets themselves. The developments in television technology never fail to astound me, and I can\u2019t wait to see what comes next.<\/p>\n
But the things that appear on my screen have started to bum me out more and more. I have always kind of felt this way, but the whole thing turned very clear when I saw a promo for a new show starring Olympic swimmer Ryan Lochte.<\/p>\n
Those unfamiliar with Mr. Lochte\u2019s work might have trouble telling the difference between clips of his show and a Saturday Night Live skit. The whole thing looks incredibly awkward and painful, mainly because Lochte is about as smart and engaging as the goggles he wears in competition.<\/p>\n
But for some reason, folks have decided that we need to see a show following him around as he tries to market himself, meet women and create absurd catch phrases. And to make things worse, some folks have decided they want to watch this.<\/p>\n
I need to tread carefully here because I count some of those folks as friends. But I just can\u2019t get behind this continuing trend of tuning in to watch real people do stupid things instead of watching actors pretending to be people doing stupid things.<\/p>\n
This kind of programming will always exist. It has a lot longer than the current reality show trend. But I can\u2019t fathom how we can let it continue to grow and grow. Do we really need to see comics and football players dive? Don\u2019t we know these aren\u2019t really housewives? Aren\u2019t we pretty much sure we know what Ryan Lochte would do, and it bothers us?<\/p>\n
I know a lot of people tune into these things to make themselves feel better, to laugh at the problems other people have navigating through daily life. I totally get the escapism factor.<\/p>\n
Sometimes even I contribute to the problem. Each summer, I watch \u201cBig Brother.\u201d I tune into \u201cPawn Stars\u201d way more than I should. I even watched the first season of \u201cThe Jersey Shore.\u201d<\/p>\n
But with each success, the people making these shows dig further and further toward the bottom of the barrel. If people liked the crazy antics of some uncouth kids living at the beach, let\u2019s make them famous and crank out four or five seasons. If people tune into watch \u201cstars\u201d dance, what other skill can we test? That swimmer had a funny soundbite – let\u2019s build a whole show around him.<\/p>\n
Sometimes people decry the 1990s because networks gave out far too many sitcoms to comedians who could not translate their jokes into a TV show. But at least those people set out to make people laugh. The new trend makes us chuckle just by trying to handle daily life, at least when we\u2019re not hanging out heads in shame because kids might actually start to say \u201cJeah!\u201d in public.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t ask. It\u2019s as dumb as it sounds.<\/p>\n
So let\u2019s use these magical boxes for good and not evil and turn the dial (or push the remote buttons) to something a little more productive. That\u2019s what I want Ryan Lochte to do, after all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We have a problem, people. A problem with our television sets. Actually, I feel no animosity toward the sets themselves. The developments in television technology never fail to astound me, and I can\u2019t wait to see what comes next. But…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,3,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-america","category-columns","category-tv","wpcat-6-id","wpcat-3-id","wpcat-7-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2062"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2062\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2063,"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2062\/revisions\/2063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}