How The Way I Watch TV Might Explain Conservatism

 

I am about to try and use psychology to explain at least one reason – perhaps the key one as to why so many people are drawn to conservatism. It has nothing to do with partisanship, the culture wars, prejudice, capitalism, or anything political at all. It couldn’t be simpler. And its actual more universal than you’d think.

Nobody likes changing things. Anything. It might be more common in older people than young people, but I fundamentally think it’s a universal truth. Honestly, name the last time you voluntarily changed anything about your life that you weren’t forced too. From the time you get in the morning to how you take your morning coffee, from the route you take to work whether its public transportation or the way you drive, we are all to an extent slave to our routine. This is not something unique to America; no matter where we live, we are reluctant to change even the time we get lunch every day. We only accept change when it is forced upon us. COVID is the most obvious example of that – and may explain the resistance by so many people to alter anything about their lives about what they consider basic about the most fundamental ways they live their lives.  No one likes change.

And to make this perfectly clear, I am as resistant as anybody to any aspect of my life that involves altering my life. Now I admit part of my psychological and mental condition is part of it, but I think given a particular part of how I live my life is a universal trait: I hate any advance in technology.

Don’t pretend that you don’t. Don’t pretend your iPad, iPhone or anything involving your computer involves an update you’re not at least irked by it. That you don’t find it irritating every time Windows needs an update that you have to learn its quirks all over again until the next version comes up. That every time a new streaming service comes along you wonder what the hell you have to do in order to get it. Indeed, that last part was something that I am still resistant too -even though it makes up a vital part of how I do my job.

Let me tell you one of my biggest quirks. For the lion’s share of my life, well past the time series were available via streaming, DVDs, and cable, I believed the only time it counted to watch a television show was when it aired or at the very least the same night. I kept a VCR attached to my television well past the dates that they stopped selling them to the  point that I had to find video tapes on eBay to use for recording. Some of the time that did have to do with shows like Jeopardy or awards show that even now never get repeated and until fairly recently never stream anywhere. But that only goes so far. Because here’s something of a quirk that I know none of you that even those of you who listen to vinyl records do.

I like watching TV shows on video tape. If I had not had to move recently, I would have brought my collection of X-Files, Glee, and Oz videotapes. I took a collection of the entire Twin Peaks series – original and The Return  - with me. I am so fascinated by the idea that I recorded Big Little Lies of an HBO+ before I moved so I could have the entire series with me. And even though I spent the last several years rewatching Lost on DVDs, when I could find the first three seasons – originally recorded when they were on ABC – on eBay, I bought the whole collection, and did the same when most of the fourth and fifth season became

available a year ago. And regardless of my feelings about it, if a recording of the series finale becomes available, I’ll buy it too.

Now I won’t deny that watching any old recording of TV has you dealing with static and bad images the more time passing. Having recently acquired a DVR, I know it is more reliable and efficient as any VHS has ever been. And I know that I can just as easily stream any series I’ve recorded over time. The fact is I still have a VCR/DVD combo, even though the VCR is practically useless. And I know if there was a way to record shows now, I’d still be doing it.

This goes to another level.  We couldn’t stream on our television until we got one in 2015. Until then, I was resistant to the idea of watching TV on any other screen. So I waited until House of Cards came out on DVD to watch in on Netflix. (My Better Late Than Never series originated from that first season.) I would spend a lot of the next two years stalking eBay for FYC DVDs of seasons of shows that would traditionally come out just a few months before Emmy season. That is how I watched the first seasons of Transparent, Bloodline and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.

This actually continued long after we were able to get streaming services for our television. I have fundamentally been more comfortable watching series on DVD than streaming. This included series that were available on streaming or basic cable: I watched the first season of Atlanta, Feud: Bette and Joan, the first season of Ozark,  Squid Game and Wandavision all on DVD. Sometimes I changed my mind after the fact  - I never did get around to watching The Handmaid’s Tale and I rejected the second season of Ozark after I bought it – but there is still something openly comforting about watching a series on a format that I’m at least more comfortable with than a newer system.

Now don’t get me wrong. I watch streaming infinitely more than I do five years ago. It is far easier to do so now that I have a TV that makes access to these services infinitely superior than it ever was to use before. But in a way, I think that is due more to the comfort of habit too – remotes for streaming TV more often resemble the remote controls of yesteryear. It is easier to advance to different if it doesn’t feel like you are changing how you do things. Almost everything else in life does not lend itself to that.

And lest you forget, I’m primarily a TV critic.  And if you have read my columns, you are fully aware that I have spent nearly as many words on this blog advocating for shows of the past as I have for series of the present, who spends as many of his reviews on broadcast television than he does for shows on Hulu, who can often find as much value in the original versions of the shows that our frequently rebooted.  And as anyone who knows who watched The Sopranos, the series that started the revolution, David Chase made it clear that the message of the series was just how hard and resistant any American, mobsters and teenage drivers alike is to anything resembling change.

But in a funny way, the way television works fundamentally makes me just the slightest bit optimistic about a path forward. Because as I said, everybody is resistant to change until its forced upon them. But its never impossible. Every technological advance in history tells us so. Electricity in our houses would burn them down. The automobile would never replace the horse and buggy. Motion pictures were a fad, then talking pictures, then Technicolor. And television would never take over the movie experience. All of these things were gospel – until they weren’t.

Same with television. People would never pay for cable. Original programming on cable would never be the equal of network TV, and it certainly would never win an Emmy in a major category. Streaming was something that would never be a threat to cable. All of these things were true – until they weren’t. There were repercussions – I don’t deny reality and I don’t deny the problems all of these leaps forward have caused – but that is fundamentally because the major people behind the biggest sources are the most resistant to change.

Even in The Sopranos Chase acknowledged change was difficult – but not impossible. He spelled that out in the final fates of Meadow and Tony Jr. They might not have the brightest future possible, but Tony’s son is not going to end up following in his father’s footsteps and Meadow’s not going to be a mob wife – or at least the kind Carmela is.  Change is hard, and it may never come as fast as most people want it too. But it is possible.

This is clear in how I now approach my job. Unless I care enough about a series that I really want to own it on DVD, I watch a streaming show on streaming. I have no problem watching Ted Lasso or Only Murders in the Building or Hacks on the streaming services that provide them.  And much as I preferred the solid bulk of a videotape, it is a lot easier to use a DVR when I don’t have time to watch Abbott Elementary or Quantum Leap.  You might say it’s comparing Apple+ and oranges, but answer me this, if the only way you could watch Euphoria was on Sundays at 9PM on your actual television, would you be so quick to follow it or would you argue: “if I can’t see it on my phone whenever I want, the hell with it?” I’m pretty sure the characters on the show would think that way. How different from them are you, really,  no matter what your age, race, or gender you identify as? But what do I know. If you’ve read this column, you already know what I think about Euphoria.