Azure Jane Lunatic (Azz) 🌺 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
azurelunatic) wrote2003-09-22 12:47 am
azurelunatic) wrote2003-09-22 12:47 am
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FAQ #7: You were clearly raised in the US, yet you are ignorant of [popular culture feature]!
How can this be?
First off, I was raised in a home on the outskirts of Fairbanks, one of Alaska's larger cities. Note that the population of 82,000 is for the entire large district area, including North Pole and other outlying communities; Fairbanks itself has a population of 30,000.
Only Anchorage is not small-town Alaska or smaller; much of Alaska's land is bush. [1]
So, I was raised in small-town Alaska, by a Registered Geek father, without a TV.
Yep. Without a TV.
That means, I did not grow up on cartoons. I did not grow up watching Mr. Rogers. I did not grow up with the Smurfs, or Sesame Street. I did not grow up watching $NEWS_ANCHOR. (Though I did have NPR...) I did not grow up with $SITCOM.
Much of the US's mass media culture is transmitted via television. I grew up apart from that. It means very little to me when someone comments, "Oh, $AWARD_SHOW is tonight, isn't it."
I was introduced to Star Trek via the books, through a happy accident in the library, where one of Alan Dean Foster's novelizations of the animated series was tossed in with the childrens' paperback chapter books. Only after I grew to love it text-only did I wind up watching it over at my virtual cousin's house.
After I turned 18, good ol' Fuzzy Modem wound up with an extra television set, and gave that to me; River gave me a spare VCR of his. I went off to college at UAF for a year, and discovered MTV and VH1, and was part of the informal "insomniac music video club" in the lounge between the hours of midnight and breakfast. I discovered the sci-fi channel. I got addicted.
There is a fuzzy area between that first attempt at college and my second one. In that, I got engaged to BJ, and discovered what true TV addiction is, in the person of his father.
BJ's father is a type A remote driver. The remote is HIS. If he gets bored, the channel is changed. Socializing, in that house, was sitting in the living room around the TV. Programs I wasn't interested in. I went from interested in specific programs, and indifference to others, to active loathing of TV. When we relocated to Arizona for college, the roommates and BJ were almost just as bad with the TV.
Now, it has become somewhat of a trueism in the household that the way to get me to leave a room is to turn on the TV.
TV use here has gone way down. I would say that we collectively watch, in this household, zero to one hour of TV per week. Sometimes the Little Fayoumis watches cartoons on weekends; more often, these days, he does not. Sometimes![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
marxdarx catches The Simpsons; sometimes he does not.
Do I feel like I'm missing out on something? Honestly, no. I followed a few shows for a while (X-Files, Frasier, Star Trek) but the only one I really was addicted to onscreen was the X-Files; I got into Trek when it was in reruns, and reruns are... something else.
One thing that continually boggles me is that Darkside and I get along as well as we do. I was raised without TV; he was, as an Army brat, raised on it. He can talk nonstop about TV for over two hours; I know that he's rather hooked on it. If we were ever in a permanent relationship and cohabitating, we might have a few issues. However, I have faith that if we ever do get together, we'll be able to work things out, because we always do.
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[1] Darkside had a very bad joke about Shawn and the Alaskan bush, which somehow I wound up being reminded of.
First off, I was raised in a home on the outskirts of Fairbanks, one of Alaska's larger cities. Note that the population of 82,000 is for the entire large district area, including North Pole and other outlying communities; Fairbanks itself has a population of 30,000.
Only Anchorage is not small-town Alaska or smaller; much of Alaska's land is bush. [1]
So, I was raised in small-town Alaska, by a Registered Geek father, without a TV.
Yep. Without a TV.
That means, I did not grow up on cartoons. I did not grow up watching Mr. Rogers. I did not grow up with the Smurfs, or Sesame Street. I did not grow up watching $NEWS_ANCHOR. (Though I did have NPR...) I did not grow up with $SITCOM.
Much of the US's mass media culture is transmitted via television. I grew up apart from that. It means very little to me when someone comments, "Oh, $AWARD_SHOW is tonight, isn't it."
I was introduced to Star Trek via the books, through a happy accident in the library, where one of Alan Dean Foster's novelizations of the animated series was tossed in with the childrens' paperback chapter books. Only after I grew to love it text-only did I wind up watching it over at my virtual cousin's house.
After I turned 18, good ol' Fuzzy Modem wound up with an extra television set, and gave that to me; River gave me a spare VCR of his. I went off to college at UAF for a year, and discovered MTV and VH1, and was part of the informal "insomniac music video club" in the lounge between the hours of midnight and breakfast. I discovered the sci-fi channel. I got addicted.
There is a fuzzy area between that first attempt at college and my second one. In that, I got engaged to BJ, and discovered what true TV addiction is, in the person of his father.
BJ's father is a type A remote driver. The remote is HIS. If he gets bored, the channel is changed. Socializing, in that house, was sitting in the living room around the TV. Programs I wasn't interested in. I went from interested in specific programs, and indifference to others, to active loathing of TV. When we relocated to Arizona for college, the roommates and BJ were almost just as bad with the TV.
Now, it has become somewhat of a trueism in the household that the way to get me to leave a room is to turn on the TV.
TV use here has gone way down. I would say that we collectively watch, in this household, zero to one hour of TV per week. Sometimes the Little Fayoumis watches cartoons on weekends; more often, these days, he does not. Sometimes
marxdarx catches The Simpsons; sometimes he does not. Do I feel like I'm missing out on something? Honestly, no. I followed a few shows for a while (X-Files, Frasier, Star Trek) but the only one I really was addicted to onscreen was the X-Files; I got into Trek when it was in reruns, and reruns are... something else.
One thing that continually boggles me is that Darkside and I get along as well as we do. I was raised without TV; he was, as an Army brat, raised on it. He can talk nonstop about TV for over two hours; I know that he's rather hooked on it. If we were ever in a permanent relationship and cohabitating, we might have a few issues. However, I have faith that if we ever do get together, we'll be able to work things out, because we always do.
Previous Question
Next Question
Back to FAQ
[1] Darkside had a very bad joke about Shawn and the Alaskan bush, which somehow I wound up being reminded of.
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I was all:
"Dollar sign? Huh, that's odd . . . wait, there's another dollar sign. I guess she's doing it on purpose to-"
*blink-blink*
"OMG! She is a geek! She's not faking it!"
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Notice that my FAQ is a doubly-linked list.
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...So do they have cable at home now? And if so, whose company?
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That would be about as funny as one half of a partnership working for Red Hat, and the other half working for Microsoft.
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*speculates dreamily*
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I love to go to the cinema, thou.
*/random comment*
*wanders off*
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Ah, well... I don't even manage to rewatch SFU with my flatmate. Work+Studying+Social Life interfere. I can't remember the last time I was really bored... as in 'I've got nothing to do - bored' and not 'procrastination - bored'.
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Official Mythbusters site
Fan club with very detailed episode summaries