On Media and Culture

"Pop culture and I don't get along," I tell people when they ask me why I watch Supernatural but not Breaking Bad, why I've heard of Nirvana but couldn't tell you why they're connected with Kurt Cobain without consulting Wikipedia, why I know the lyrics to "Call Me Maybe" only from hearing it in drugstores and amusement park lines. I am disconnected, I honestly don't care, I never take the time to pay attention--call it what you will. I am clueless. I am behind the curve. I am uncultured and I am happy with it.

You want me to talk about fourteenth-century British literature? I got that shit down. The Canterbury tales and Olde English mistrel ballads are my jam. Argentinian tangos from the 1890s? I could dance the night away, and sing you the lyrics as well. Yet I have no comprehensive knowledge from even these epochs that I have studied extensively, whether for my education and/or for my own enjoyment. I own a scattered encyclopedia of errant Google searches, Wikipedia articles, TV Tropes links, art and music and history and literature all jumbled into a dime-store confusion in my head, no way to tell what's useful and what's junk.

There are extremes of media consumption, and I think I run no closer to the complete shut-in than I do to the avid addict who never looks away from their chosen screen. I often pride myself on never having watched TV as a family activity, with the exception of the three brief but wonderful seasons of Leverage we watched live, where we would gather in the family room on Sunday nights, occasionally spilling drinks and shouting at the screen. I also definitely pride myself on reading and having read more than the average college student, in sheer volume if not necessarily quality--there have been more sci-fi and fantasy novels in my personal library than classics, but I value my Anne McCaffrey more than my Jane Austen.

But these days, I get most of my information and entertainment from the Internet. It worries me, more often than not, how easy it is for me to quite literally spend hours clicking through funny pictures on loltrap.com, or reading inane articles on Buzzfeed, or speeding through less-shitty-than-usual fanfiction on Tumblr. I could be reading classic novels, watching good movies, listening to the endless list of music friends and family have recommended to me, or even catching up homework or on all-too-precious sleep... but that requires thinking. To consume, truly internalize and make something your own, requires effort and conscious thought, and after a day of being a brain on the run, most often all I want to do is sit down and vegetate. The internet is easy, painless, everything is literally a click away and I can let the cat gifs wash over my abused synapses in a soothing rush of swift and shallow enjoyment. Even if a good book or a relevant news article would be more nourishing, it wouldn't be as easy to consume.