Is modern "entertainment" torture to you?

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Watching Seinfeld recently on tv, I noticed that I was getting stressed out by the process just as I always do. I do not think the show itself was the reason for that because I find pretty funny and I enjoyed it on its original run. Long ago I narrowed down what was pissing me off to commercials. I believe the anticipation of ads causes stress. I think that's pretty obvious, but I recently started paying attention to their content and I think that's causing stress too. Why would someone think it was reasonable to have ad breaks during a comedy show about funeral parlours and news ads featuring terrorists?

Comedy is meant to be a panacea, but the way it is presented today seems to reflect the condition of bipolar by eliciting or trying to elicit wildly contrasting emotions in rapid succession.

People with sensory sensitivity probably have an enhanced ability to narrow down the sources of discomfort. Does anyone else feel the same way? Is "entertainment" these days becoming more a source of negative emotions than positive ones?

This poll is about all forms and delivery systems for entertainment.

I also ticked "other," to add in reality tv.

Reality TV is gruel for the intellect, except that they want us to eat "more please."

I have seen promos for reality shows where the head cook is humiliating the staff in front of customers. That kind of thing will lead to a lawsuit hopefully if it was actually real. I don't think it's real though.

On this subject, this is a new book about public humiliation that looks good. Having to always turn the other cheek all the time is not something I think is good, especially when the conformity that's often demanded is impossible for a lot of people. Sometimes I wish for (figurative) weapons to strike out against the pc conformity police which today seems to consist of almost everybody, unfortunately.

Some conformity is also necessary, obviously. But, reality tv more often than not seems to endorse a state of affairs that is the opposite of what it would be good for people to do. It's often instructive of bad relationship building.

All of the above.

I generally can't watch much TV because it feels like a huge waste of time. If it's an entertainment series or sitcom I can't watch it without feeling incredibly depressed over sacrificing an hour of my life on it. There are some cool shows on but even at that - if it's a really deep and gritty series of the action/suspense genre and it's five or six seasons - that's an insane amount of commitment for me to have with the TV.

On the other hand with internet advertisement - I'm about to propose that Single Mom needs a Marvel comic already. She's too prolific, becoming quite a meme, and solving too many of the world's problems not to have a cape, a mask, and "POW" "BANG!" "WHAPP!" captions as she goes Justice League on the ensconced aristocracy of experts in every field.

"I am more than eight years old. Why would I wanna see a movie in which the main characters are Hasbro toys?"

That was my response when my buddy invited me to see his latest "Transformers" DVD. He got upset.

Oh well. I guess its just me. Everyone else relates to dramas about plastic ten story tall creatures from outer space who can morph into race cars because they have to deal with that kinda s**t everyday, and I don't. Silly me.

I voted clickbait because I sometimes still fall for it.

I avoid commercials by using a DVR and forwarding through them or waiting till something is available on streaming. They are harder to avoid on youtube but you can generally click out of them after 4 seconds and they don't interrupt the video once it's underway.

Dumb content (like reality shows) does get promoted because it's cheap to produce. But smart content can be found if you look for it and some is promoted in geeky venues (Dr. Who for example). I don't mind having to search rather than having it promoted to me because I like the thrill of the chase.

But I still fall for clickbait sometimes. When the clickbait says 'you'll never believe what happened when this baby elephant saw the ocean for the first time' I find muself scrolling through pages of ads to find out. I am working on not doing that. If it really is amazing, somebody will excise it and put it on reddit.

Those idiotic "Happy-Talk" local newscasters who spend most of their time laughing and joking with each other instead of reporting the news.

Nope.

Watching Hulu and Netflix takes care of most of those issues. And yes, I watch TV to include several reality shows.

I realize I'm suppose to say I hate TV and whatnot to appear hip, cool, and intelligent, but my overwhelming apathy towards the opinions of other humans has only been growing in recent years; therefore, people are free to think of me as decidedly not hip, cool, or intelligent. Cheers.

*returns to watching "Hell's Kitchen"*

Good choice, the new movies are s**t. And it's not because it was ultimately based on an 80s toyline, it's because they suck. They focus on the humans instead of the transformers, unlike the 80s cartoon and animated film. Maybe it's the nostalgia, but as I kid I watched the transformers cartoon (generation 1) and the movie. I think those were pretty decent, still for kids though.
Oh, those new transformers have horrendous product placement. It's is so unsubtle it's disgusting. I don't know how many times I saw "LENOVO" in huge letters on my screen. Once you notice (and you will) you cannot un-notice, and you know you are just watching a commercial.

You can save time by watching one of the several "insult compilations" of Gordon Ramsay
Can't post here obviously because of language.

i have not turned on the television to watch TV SHOWS in the last two and a half years, now i only use it for playing video games, movies i've bought, that. neither do i watch tv shows on netflix/hulu or whatever, so i should have just said i don't watch tv shows at all, anymore. i guess i simply don't have the energy or commitment or level of shit-giving to keep up on a series. i find sitting down for 1.5 - 3 hours watching a film much easier/ (even if a show's episodes are much shorter...)

my dad paints himself with the most obvious hypocrisy whenever he tells me to get off the computer and do something else, immediately before planting himself down again to watch caso cerrado on the TV or some reality show, or just channel surfing. depends on the specific situation/program of course, but computer use seems like a less sedentary activity then tv use, the latter requiring nothing more then fixed gaze (hypocrisy notwithstanding, he's not completely wrong, i do spend quite some time here!)

starting to lose a in movie theaters too, unless i can just hang out in the bathroom for around 25 minutes while all the trailers and first looks are over. when when i enter the screening area the actual movie has started

i don't care much for the content that sells nowadays, to each their own, i guess. no complaining about what you can't change, and it's pretty easy to avoid.

there are good shows, there will always be good stuff out there someplace, i just find my other hobbies more interesting. just less able to focus on them when there is a tv in every room here and two are always on playing some show, it seems (but not while i type this )

i'm really not upset by not being able to relate to some peers/their conversations because i don't watch the same media they do, not getting any references.

haven't seen too many but i guess those are annoying also. i use the internet for the bulk of my news.

i watched (one of the) transformers animated series in the early/mid 2000s and i liked it. don't remember much though.

The CONTENT of the commercial. Commercials have pretty much gone from annoying solicitations for a lot of items I am not interested in & the occasional one I am, to these really bad trips that seem like they are designed to completely make people feel like utter crap about being alive. I just don't get why they have gotten so horrid. If cable did include a "skip the ad" option, you would see the commercials improving as most of the really bad ones would be quickly screened out due to lack of viewership.

I really dislike most of them and even suggested to my cable company to include a 'skip the ad" option like on Youtube, then Youtube got rid of their button when it was the best thing about having ads there, skipping them, then they took it away.

i almost have to admire the deliberate stupidity and incompetence many actors have to summon forth to portray the "before-product you", you know, people failing to do everyday tasks when they aren't in possession of whatever product is being pitched. often in black and white. like owning that thing will give you a basic sense of balance and proprioception you didn't have! it's one way to make people buy useless things, make them feel useless or not good enough to get them hooked on it. fortunately blatant messages of "you're not good enough" are in some minority (to me, anyway) and i see are the neutral solicitations (a bit) more often.

you just don't see those kinds of commercials on YouTube and such, do you? at least compared to tv. i really like one air-france commercial that i saw for the first time a few days ago, with people swinging in what seemed to be trapezes in a hollow fuselage,i tried to look for the music using some lyrics, but i couldn't find it anywhere, i'm guessing it was tailor-made for the ad.

hm. would refusing to participate in that economy by buying nothing make me some sort of public enemy?

Most of what I see in commercials on television doesn't appeal to me because they are mostly geared toward people wanting to get prescriptions for Viagra or eye drops and there are so many pizza ads and it's Little Caesars and I do not go there. This one ad for 2 Sell Homes I really dislike because they are patronizing in it. I just don't like hearing their tone of voice and I don't like being told what to do by them in that tone of voice, especially the lady's. She always has this slight hint of misanthropy in her voice. She also sounds like this television personality that has the reputation of yelling people into buying things instead of merely talking them into it. Her name was Linda Soundtrack. Now people think the new woman is her so she has to yell at people in the 2 Sell Homes ad, "I AM NOT LINDA SOUNDTRACK!" she might as well be.

It just seems most ads are either created to be as irritating as possible or incredibly long.

I also resent really long ads for charities mainly because they are very long. I really do wish charities would find another way to solicit money than incredibly long ads on television that air over and over. If I had the skip the ad option, the charity ads I would skip every time because if I were to give to a charity, it wouldn't be over and over, every time I see the same commercial. I feel they do everything in their power to get money from people and it's just too much. I know it sounds harsh but I feel like some of them cross boundaries and I find myself changing the channel if I know the ad is going to be longer than average and that goes for prescription drugs, too. I don't watch television to feel bad or depressed, I watch it to escape feeling that way and I feel like they invade this sanctuary I attempt to create for myself by forcing several dismal or obnoxious commercials on me.

Last edited by ooOoOoOAnaOoOoOoo on 11 Mar 2015, 12:11 am, edited 1 time in total.

some of the commercials [mostly local insert adverts] on "coast to coast" are simply intolerable.