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Related: Culture Forums, Support ForumsAm I the only one who wants to throw a brick at the TV when this comes on?
MLAA
(17,332 posts)mopinko
(70,238 posts)strike me as amusing the first time i see them, but i get tired of them reeeeeeal quick.
geico commercials, tho, rarely wear on me.
Skittles
(153,193 posts)it's the Poshmark and Thredup commercials - women gushing over used fashions - that make me sick
Marie Marie
(9,999 posts)gordianot
(15,245 posts)Emus are nasty creatures but why commercialize one banging his beak into glass? Emu abuse.
I also despise the law firm ambulance chaser lady for baby powder, weed killer etc. Advertising for multi millions litigants will never see.
Botta Book Botta Boom is unspeakable and I do want to glow.
sop
(10,265 posts)The bird, native to Australia, closely resembles an Emu. Apparently, the man tripped and fell on the ground while inside the Cassowary's enclosure; the bird jumped on him, killing him with its sharp claws. Now, every time I see that annoying Geico commercial, I half-hope that Emu goes after the guy.
gordianot
(15,245 posts)On occasions he finds dead coyotes in his field. Now if you could get a few after that asswipe Chuck Wollery, purveyor of Emu grease and Donald Trump.
RainCaster
(10,921 posts)But when I see DFT on the idiot box, I want that brick to go through the system and come out the other end. It's a dream of mine.
PoindexterOglethorpe
(25,902 posts)Try it. You'll like it.
Laffy Kat
(16,386 posts)PoindexterOglethorpe
(25,902 posts)This is the fourth time in my life (I'm 70, gasp!) that I've gone without TV for a major length of time. It's now been 11 years, and I cannot begin to imagine ever having regular TV again.
Let's see if I can systematically tell the story.
When I was 17 and first lived on my own I was simply too poor to own a TV. This is obviously in the era of broadcast only, when everyone watched one of the three networks. At the time I felt slightly weird and isolated, but only slightly.
Then I had a roommate who had a TV. Then the roommate situation ended and I was once again without TV. That entire time was about two and a half years. Most of which were without TV.
I moved to another part of the country, initially living with my brother and his wife and they had a TV. After about four months I moved into my own apartment. No TV. After a while, perhaps three or four months, I got a TV (can't exactly recall how i acquired it). I did watch the moon landing on that small B&W TV. I watched more or less regularly, and a year or so later lent it to a friend who never returned it. I wasn't particularly bothered by not having a TV. That no TV time went on for six or so years (looking back I'm astonished to realize how long it lasted) until I met my husband to be. He had a TV, and so I fell back into the habit of watching. We married, had kids, got cable, and lived an ordinary life with TV. Somewhere in the middle of that we let our cable subscription lapse and were without TV for perhaps three months. I was happy without, but the other family members demanded TV.
Then my marriage came to an end and I moved some 800 miles away to another part of the country. When I first moved here (Santa Fe, NM, which isn't important to this story) I didn't get a TV for several reasons. One was that I really felt I couldn't afford to purchase a TV. Second was that I couldn't really afford cable, and I'd long since learned that if I'm going to have TV, I want cable. Third was that in the apartment I rented the cable hook up, meaning where I'd be placing a TV, was right under the one window in the living room. Which meant I'd have to put a TV there, blocking the window and requiring the blinds be closed if I'd be watching TV. Which made no sense to me. Why block out this wonderful northern New Mexico light?
I did get internet. And quickly learned that I could watch much of what I wanted on the internet. I moved here in 2008 and I was able to watch the conventions on the internet. Election night all of the networks went to live streaming and so I watched the election returns as if I had regular TV.
Who needs TV? Or cable? Or satellite? Okay, so if you're a huge sports fanatic you might really need cable or satellite. But for normal, non sports obsessed folks, no.
You can watch nearly everything without conventional TV. I have Hulu, Amazon Prime, and Netflix. Also a wonderful back door to almost everything else.
Any time there's a major breaking news, like flood or fire or mass shooting, local TV stations go to live streaming. Just google TV stations whatever city and check it out. What's best about that is that you get local coverage, not filtered through whatever network you might otherwise tune into. I've been doing this for eleven years now, and I've learned that watching the local coverage is amazing.
There are probably worthwhile services that I don't know about. I am aware that a lot of services are intended to piggy back onto regular TV, so I can't say anything intelligent or worthwhile about them. What I can tell you is that I miss almost nothing.
Here are the advantages.
No commercial ads. More on that below.
No political ads. This is quite amazing. You'll be very happy.
You don't get sucked into turning on whatever your go-to news network is and leaving it on for hours at a time.
You don't get caught up in an endless loop of some stupid story that isn't all that important in the first place.
You will have time to do better things, such as read books.
Back in the 1970s, in that second major no TV part of my life, a co-worker was genuinely concerned that I was not learning about current events in a timely fashion. So he'd periodically quiz me. To his utter astonishment, I not only knew pretty much what was going on, I could often give him details he didn't know about because he wasn't getting them from TV. But I knew them because I was reading things like the Washington Post and Time magazine and, oh, yes, reading books.
Even now, depending on whether or not you ever see my byline elsewhere on DU, I often pipe up in some conversation about a book I've read relevant to the topic at hand.
Which means, trust me, you will wind up vastly better informed so long as you read at least one newspaper, look at various on line sources, and read books.
I also want to stress this. Try no TV as an experiment. Do not start out thinking you'll do without forever. When I moved to Santa Fe and didn't purchase a TV, I assumed it was a temporary situation. Of course I'd get one after a while. But soon I realized I wasn't really missing anything. But again, if you try no TV for a while and find you are genuinely missing things you simply cannot get any other way, that's okay. Go back to conventional TV.
But the ads. Oh, dear lord, the ads. Because you essentially never see them on the internet, after a while you'll find that regular TV ads are truly awful. Not so much the ads themselves, well, yes they are terrible, but it's the frequency that's so dreadful. It feels like half of every show is taken up in advertisements. For a number of years whenever I was in a hotel room I'd tend to turn on the TV a bit. But within a half hour I'd turn it back off again because I just could not abide the nonstop commercials. In recent years the TV in a hotel room is basically invisible to me. Can't tell you when the last time was I turned one on.
It may help a lot that I never got into watching morning TV. Quite literally never. For a long time I worked an afternoon shift and simply wasn't up in the mornings. Later, when I was married and had young kids, I simply never turned the TV on in the mornings. I knew moms who used morning TV as a babysitter and they invariably had a lot of difficulty getting their kids out the door to school. Plus, I saw no point in having my kids watch Saturday morning cartoons. So they never did.
Oh. Here's another benefit of no TV/no ads. You're completely divorced from the constant exhortations to spend, spend, spend! This is especially good when you're suddenly living on a much smaller income, as happened to me. TV ads (and to a lesser extent magazine ads) send the message that your personal worth is utterly dependent on how much money you spend and what material goods you own. So it's incredibly easy to feel inferior and unworthy if you can't afford stuff. Take away TV and its ads and after a while you simply don't know what you're supposed to be buying and you really don't care. This is wonderful if you're on a limited income.
So give it a try. You can always go back to regular TV/cable/satellite if you don't care for doing without. I will suggest you give it a six month try, because any shorter length of time might not be enough to truly break the addiction.
Good luck.
Laffy Kat
(16,386 posts)I have the exact opposite history. I've never been w/o a television. I even keep one on when I'm not watching because I like the background noise. I used to sleep with one on, but my bedroom set broke and I decided not to replace; now I sleep with my laptop on Youtube. Obviously, it's a big deal to cut the cord. The thing is, I feel like I'm paying way too much for what I'm getting. So many of the channels on DISH are nothing more than advertisements and the rest of the programming, with very few exceptions, is crap.
Presently both of my young adult sons are living with me, although they care nothing about T.V., I'm the only one in the household who watches. You're right that it's an addition and I know it's terrible for me.
I'm leaning toward getting a smart T.V. and Roku.
PoindexterOglethorpe
(25,902 posts)Turn on the radio. Especially to NPR and the like.
Now read a book.
It's also been demonstrated that having any kind of screen on in the room where you're sleeping interferes with good sleep. So if nothing else turn it off at night. If you must have noise put on the radio. But turned down so low you can barely hear it.
When I visit my sister her TV is on almost constantly and it makes me crazy. Her grandchildren spend a lot of time there, which is the main source of the TV-that-has-no-off-switch. The layout of her house is such that it's almost impossible to get away from it, especially as the living room has almost no light sufficient for reading. It's her place, so I hesitate to complain much. What I often do is to turn it off when no one is actually in the room.
Laffy Kat
(16,386 posts)I just spent an hour prepping dinner and realized I didn't have the TV on which, believe me, is real progress, LOL.
PoindexterOglethorpe
(25,902 posts)You are attempting a huge change. Don't force it. Don't give up more than you are ready for. Just turning it off for a while is, as you said, real progress. Hang in there.
And print out my list of the benefits:
No political ads. This is quite amazing. You'll be very happy.
You don't get sucked into turning on whatever your go-to news network is and leaving it on for hours at a time.
You don't get caught up in an endless loop of some stupid story that isn't all that important in the first place.
You will have time to do better things, such as read books.
That might help.
I do want to reiterate and emphasize that when I first got to Santa Fe and decided not to buy a regular TV or get cable, I honestly regarded it as temporary. I figured that in a few months I'd go back to regular TV. What helped enormously was that by that time, the middle of 2008, what was available on the internet made a huge difference. And it still does.
I don't want you to think I'm some sort of purist who never watches TV. Oh, no, not at all. I just don't watch regular commercial TV. I get to watch pretty much all the shows I'm interested in. But I do get to watch them when I want, and without commercials.
I am not left out of breaking news.
I think perhaps the main difference between you and me is that since I don't have conventional TV, I don't have a set turned on constantly, or even occasionally. When I want to watch something I sit in front of my computer monitor, the one in front of me as I type this, and watch whatever.
But if you can break the addiction of having the TV on 24/7, you'll be very happy. And trust me, you will still be able to watch as much as you want to.
We are truly in the golden age of TV. No matter what your tastes, and even if I think your choice in shows is truly dreadful and you think the same of me, that's not the point. The point is that there are many, many things to watch, and many of them are quite good. There are simply more shows, more good shows, to watch than any of us have time for.
dweller
(23,665 posts)Go Daddy commercial or even have to hear one
I'll be a happy fella .. 😑
✌🏼️
Skittles
(153,193 posts)ENOUGH already
House of Roberts
(5,186 posts).
ProudLib72
(17,984 posts)Their commercials that use the Statue of Liberty as a backdrop. You know the ones that make it look like there is a waterfront promenade right in front of the statue? Yeah, no such place exists. The only way to get a shot like that would be on a ferry. They have several ads using the Statue of Liberty backdrop, and each one of them features a different railing by the water. It's fake as fuck! I hate it to death!
liberaltrucker
(9,130 posts)Dream Girl
(5,111 posts)Alpeduez21
(1,757 posts)House of Roberts
(5,186 posts)'Liberty, Liberty, Liberty...Liberty!' and 'Wayfair, you've got nothin' I need!'
liberaltrucker
(9,130 posts)I went to the Wayfair website. Not a damn thing I would ever consider buying.
Best Buy, however.....
Laffy Kat
(16,386 posts)Unless they're going for a toddler demographic, they have bombed. I have to mute the TV or change channels when it comes on.
procon
(15,805 posts)because I either change channels or hit mute. Are they trying to save endangered emus? Is it a promo for a new sitcom about some bumbling jerk and his pet emu?
Stupidly ineffective advertising concept if it isn't linked to the product they're trying to promote.
Crabby Appleton
(5,231 posts)To my lifetime no-buy list - I hate this commercial:
https://m.
Grammy23
(5,815 posts)Who was dishonest, fleeced a small non-profit and lied repeatedly to any and everybody. He was never caught and punished. So seeing Mr. Mayhem is very unpleasant for me on many levels.
Flo and Jamie and her Progressive buddies have worn out their welcome, too. Time for a new campaign. To be honest, I was never wild about it in the first place but it has really gotten on my last nerve now.
liberaltrucker
(9,130 posts)nt
blue neen
(12,328 posts)I'd never buy Allstate because of it!
Totally Tunsie
(10,885 posts)customerserviceguy
(25,183 posts)has the stupidest ads. Progressive, State Farm, and yes, even Geico have the most amusing ones.
mr_lebowski
(33,643 posts)And switched to Progressive. Who's name I much prefer
They also do ads on Faux but not nearly as many as Liberty.
underpants
(182,904 posts)Really great deal. Wed been with Geico for yeeeeaaaars.
red dog 1
(27,866 posts)Nearly all insurance commercials, both radio & TV, are pretty bad.
The only one I can think of that's not too bad is State Farm.
"Like a good neighbor, State farm is there."
gratuitous
(82,849 posts)You got no complaints.
Or Jose Feliciano:
Rhiannon12866
(206,076 posts)red dog 1
(27,866 posts)All of them are God-awful!
(Progressive Insurance commercials are pretty bad too)