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keryxI almost forgot that this is the Season of Self-Hating Resolutions!
Usually I start the new year slightly angry at... well, mainstream America, I guess. But this year, I wouldn't have noticed it if my friend/instructor hadn't pointed out the unusually large number of people in the park when we trained Sunday.
It must be television - I don't have teevee now, which means I don't see ads, and I don't see 'news' programs talking about 'eating healthily' (dieting), or 'getting fit' (punishing your bad bad fat self at the gym). This rocks. I mean, seriously, I'm used to seething up to and through the month of January - the message that we all suck and need to resolve to hate ourselves more (always, of course, in the language of treating ourselves better, which is vicious and cruel) is so overwhelming.
That says something about the power of teevee, I think. It's not that I'm anti-the-teevee, just that it's clearly had an effect on me, and I'm glad to be rid of that effect. I do think everyone should move and eat however's healthy for our individual bodies, but it's not a moral obligation - it's just something that would make us all feel better. The problem with the pervasive influence of teevee (and all the other ways the command to hate yourself gets disseminated) at this time of year is that it makes it so difficult for many people to experience the joy of healthiness. The message is that healthy is a duty, and you're failing at it right now (but you could change, if you'd just buy this product); it's a lie, but I think we all want so badly for something to be the truth that we'll believe whatever we hear often enough.
So, yeah. Turn off your teevee. Advertising is why human ingenuity brought us Netflix.
Usually I start the new year slightly angry at... well, mainstream America, I guess. But this year, I wouldn't have noticed it if my friend/instructor hadn't pointed out the unusually large number of people in the park when we trained Sunday.
It must be television - I don't have teevee now, which means I don't see ads, and I don't see 'news' programs talking about 'eating healthily' (dieting), or 'getting fit' (punishing your bad bad fat self at the gym). This rocks. I mean, seriously, I'm used to seething up to and through the month of January - the message that we all suck and need to resolve to hate ourselves more (always, of course, in the language of treating ourselves better, which is vicious and cruel) is so overwhelming.
That says something about the power of teevee, I think. It's not that I'm anti-the-teevee, just that it's clearly had an effect on me, and I'm glad to be rid of that effect. I do think everyone should move and eat however's healthy for our individual bodies, but it's not a moral obligation - it's just something that would make us all feel better. The problem with the pervasive influence of teevee (and all the other ways the command to hate yourself gets disseminated) at this time of year is that it makes it so difficult for many people to experience the joy of healthiness. The message is that healthy is a duty, and you're failing at it right now (but you could change, if you'd just buy this product); it's a lie, but I think we all want so badly for something to be the truth that we'll believe whatever we hear often enough.
So, yeah. Turn off your teevee. Advertising is why human ingenuity brought us Netflix.
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-02 03:58 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-02 04:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-03 07:50 am (UTC)...and netflix is so very lovely.
mr.darkness has TV --we do still watch The Simpsons in realtime, just often enough that I still get vexed every single time the VCR fails to fast-forward automatically through the ads (b/c it's not a tape, duh!) and I lunge for the Mute button so fast I'm surprised I haven't broken anything. When you've been away from the ad barrage and you sit through it once, it's both an agonizing and a radicalizing experience!
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-03 07:57 am (UTC)