Hacker News Reader

Comment by overgard | Hacker News Reader

I don't necessarily mean this as a criticism of you, because you should spend time how it best suits you, but I feel like there's this meme that watching things is a waste of time. To me, I don't buy it. Certainly some things are a waste of time, but there's also absolutely a lot of excellent things that are entirely worth watching and will better you. I guess I just get annoyed by the, somewhat smug, "I don't watch TV crowd". If that's your jam that's fine, I just don't think it's implicitly a good thing or a bad thing.

View on HN

No. I've watched a lot of tv. I realized one day just how many hours of my life i'd spent just watching entire series straight through, watching and rewatching movies, my entire childhood watching cartoons and tv shows. It's definitely at least a few years of my life cumulatively.

That's time I could have spent getting better at hobbies I enjoy, learning things, going out and doing things, making things.

I started thinking about it around the time I realized time is pretty much the only thing any of us has ever and once it's gone it's gone. I decided I'd devoted enough time in my life to passively watching things.

Don't get me wrong. I'll still watch things occasionally and I don't think people who spend their time watching things are wasting their time.

It's just for me, I didn't like the way it took up my attention and time, I didn't like the way my head was full of knowledge about countless tv shows and movies and I made a choice, helped along by the increasing lack of quality in content and complication of services, to just detach from it all, watch the odd thing that comes along that really appeals to me, and just avoid the rest.

> Don't get me wrong.

One of these days one of those social studies dudes is going to hit on the idea that shoving stories/ideas into other people's brains is wrong.

Wonder if he'll manage to tell the world. Perhaps they did and did not.

It's not just a question of whether there is some value in TV and movies, the question is whether it's a better use of time than other alternatives. Maybe it's partly just getting older but over time I've found subjectively the quality / value of TV and movies seems to have declined relative to other ways I could be spending my time.

Well, it probably depends on what you're doing. I'm interested in creating fiction and comedy, so, to me when I'm watching shows I'm entertained, but I'm also studying them to see what works and what doesn't; how they approached certain problems, etc. But realistically, a lot of people aren't interested in creative fields, and in that context sure, watching fiction can just be hedonism in a sense. I like to think good fiction and comedy actually teaches you something, though, but in a way where it doesn't feel laborious. For instance, standup comedy might just seem like laughs, but the comedians that are really good at it almost always have a kernel of truth in what they're saying, and comedy is one of the best ways to say something controversial without getting crucified.

Another entirely valid reason is escapism. The world can be a really crappy place. I can say the certain movies/shows have absolutely helped me through some bad times. I've got terminal cancer, sometimes the only way you can really escape the constant malaise of having to forcibly work towards another day is by borrowing strength from the characters on screen.

As to what you're saying about studying the shows I do that too. Gone Girl is a movie that realistically is pretty easy to figure out the twist. But the way that it's written and acted is stunningly wonderful. It's rare to see solid stories elevated.

Comedians have always been and will always be about holding a mirror to society and pointing out the flaws in a way that makes people realise societies flaws, but make the solutions seem comically trivial. I'd wager it's a highly undervalued skill.

there's also absolutely a lot of excellent things that are entirely worth watching and will better you

Name two. I'm very sceptical of the idea of being bettered by watching in general.

I watch movies with my wife and we talk about the good ones for years. Watching good content is stimulating and makes you think about it for the rest of your life.

I could name far more!

Cosmos? Planet Earth? Or what about the myriad of documentaries you can find? Or shows about history?

I suppose this also depends on if you think fiction betters you as a person (I don't think the medium you receive it in matters all that much; so I don't think you need to read a thick russian novel). If you don't; I guess I just fundamentally disagree with you, and in a way, I almost feel sad on your behalf. Almost all of human morals and values, not to mention deep life lessons, have historically been taught through fiction. If you do, then obviously there's a lot of EXCELLENT fiction on TV, shows like Breaking Bad, or Mad Men. Or recent shows like Barry. Those shows rival even large novels in the amount of time it takes to consume them and what they can say, and they even have the advantage of being able to take advantage of music and filmography to set moods and make points that books cannot (books of course also have their own set of advantage, I'm not trashing them)

Planet Earth is an example of the medium used well I think - amazing footage of reality that would be very expensive, time consuming and difficult to observe first hand, presented with fairly light editorializing.

I personally haven't got the same value from TV fiction. Mad Men is good example - I watched it because it was widely praised and I got somewhat caught up in wanting to know what happened next but in retrospect I really don't feel I got anything much out of it and I would like those hours of my life back. I feel the same about almost everything I watched while I had a Netflix subscription.

I've got nothing against pure entertainment. I've found Game of Thrones entertaining and will likely watch the final season with my fiancé. I continue to watch the occasional popcorn movie at the cinema. There's very little TV and only a few movies that feel they rise beyond entertainment to something like literature however.

If you get value out of TV and movies I've got no problem with that. As someone who used to watch a lot of both and now feels that was largely a waste of my time though I just no longer see much value there.

I guess it's not for everyone -- to me, Mad Men was a really interesting commentary on consumer culture and suburbia; along with giving a much more realistic view of a period of time that has been extremely influential yet usually reflected in a pretty one dimensional way. If someone asked me to read an essay about the values on 1950s/1960s america, I really don't think I'd care, but by giving me interesting characters and presenting their values in concrete situations, it made learning about that time a lot more interesting and relevant. I think with fiction, when it works, you learn a lot without even realizing it. That can make it seem like it's not valuable because sometimes you don't even realized it planted a seed in your mind. I mean, how much more effective was a novel like 1984 versus someone talking about the dangers of government surveillance? I'd argue 1984 had much more impact (unfortunately, probably not enough), even though it was entirely fiction.

I'm not saying there is no value in fiction. Does Mad Men belong in the same conversation as 1984 though? I don't think so.

Does any TV show deserve to stand next to the greats of literature? I'm not convinced. The closest I can get to a TV show that felt it paid off the time investment with saying something worthwhile is probably The Wire. There's probably a handful of films that I can say the same for.

For any activity I think it can be useful to look back and ask if it was time well spent. For me personally I can answer yes for many ways I spend my time. That includes some fiction. It includes very little TV. Maybe there was actually some hidden value but I'd rather spend time on things I don't feel ambiguous about the value of.

OTOH, I often see young people on reddit asking "Was business in the sixties really like Mad Men? Did they really smoke and drink that much - even AT WORK? Were they really so sexist? Seriously?"

So I think those kids learned something that wasn't in their history books.

I'll name: anything even temporarily culturally or socially relevant?

I'm probably going to blow your mind wide open here. Sometimes, and stick with me here, talking to people _about_ movies/shows/music/entertainment[x] can be a fun byproduct of seeing entertainment form [x].

That's, or course, for us normies, though. For you iamverysmart people who can't conceive of exstracting any value from movies, I assume I similarly won't be able to understand your side, where you work on big, big, Big important things in your spare time.

Hearing about movies/shows/music/entertainment from people is almost always more fun when I don't know the piece they're talking about.

And it's not about doing big, big, important things in your spare time. It's about doing vs watching. You can hit the gym and, while doing nothing original, smart, or important, actually better yourself.

If you don't know what they're talking about are you really contributing much to the conversation? I used to have a roommate that would make fun of me for being really excited about watching Breaking Bad; and when it was on he'd start asking me about a million questions. But it was less of a conversation than just being peppered with a bunch of annoying questions. I had to tell him, look man, if you're interested in the show just watch it, and if you're not stop interrupting it. Talking about the show with other people following it was really fun, but talking about it with people that didn't care was draining.

With regards to doing vs. watching, if you're in any sort of creative field, how can have enough inspiration to draw on if you never actually fill your reserves by consuming things? And, as I presume, even if you're not in a creative field, there's still the non-fiction aspect.

I'm not saying you need to go watch things, but virtue signalling that you're better by not consuming anything is pretty counterproductive to yourself.

Chinatown and Shoplifting Family. Both are beautiful, life changing movies.

I’m curious how you feel about reading. If you just have a generally nihilistic view that art in general doesn't better people, that kind of makes sense. But if you think there is something deficient about the video medium in particular, what is that?

You walk away different from great art whether its film, television, books, music, painting/plastic arts, etc. Box office pablum like the latest superhero movie is largely forgettable, but great culture will give you new perspectives on identity, relationships, morality, society, etc.

Then you don't seem to be looking very thoroughly. Films and series are just another form of art and similar to any other category the highlights are naturally harder to find.

But dismissing them outright seems very narrow-minded.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com