Week 1 and 2
Week 2, 3 and 4
Week 5 and 6
Week 6, 7 and 8
Week 8 and 9
Week 9
The first thing I notice when I look at all the pages of my TV diary is that I mostly watch TV alone. Before diving into why I watch TV alone, I want to talk about why I watch so much TV.
First of all, I would state TV as my number one hobby/interest. I watch TV when I want to relax. It is a pleasurable and positive experience for me. Second, I watch TV for university and study. I do a lot of assignments about TV programs, I reference a lot of TV programs in my media making, and I obviously take TV Cultures, so watching TV is pretty paramount. I watched Weeds this semester because it is created by Jenji Kohan, who created Orange Is The New Black (which I did my presentation on), and I watched Oz because it is a prison drama, which also relates to my presentation. Third, I watch TV for career purposes. I want to work in TV, so I need to know TV. I watch TV programs that I have worked on, and I share these programs with my friends and family. Finally, I watch TV as art. I consume and enjoy TV like someone would with a book, or a painting, or a film. I love TV, I live TV (I am TV… lol).
So, why do I watch TV alone? To be perfectly honest, the people around me do not take TV as seriously as I do. That sentence sounds arrogant, but go back to the paragraph above where I detail how TV is my life.
The people I live with, they work,, they study, and they do the things that relax them like calling their family or listening to music. As you can see in week 8 and 9, I started watching Oz with my boyfriend, Doug. I found this amazing, because Doug doesn’t watch TV (at all), but he got really into Oz when I started. But that lasted a three days. He went back to university and work, and I couldn’t wait for him anymore. I have no patience when I am watching a program. I start from the beginning, and I have to finish it, and I can’t waste anytime because all I want to do is to watch it. Everything I watch, I binge-watch. I don’t really have another way of watching TV (unless it’s The Bachelor where I don’t really have a choice).
Another reason why I watch TV alone is because of my available technology. When I lived in a sharehouse with a TV, I would watch network TV and DVD box sets with my housemates, but I would also stream TV and watch it in my room alone. When I lived in a house with just Doug, a TV and no internet, I got into Masterchef because it was on nearly every night, and I would watch whatever was on, usually alone. Now I live in an apartment with no TV and great internet, and I stream everyday. Because I watch TV on my laptop, usually in bed, it is a one-person affair.
Do I mind watching TV alone? No. I do most things that I enjoy alone. But I didn’t always watch TV alone. When I was a kid, I would watch TV with my family. We would eat dinner and watch cartoons together (The Simpsons, Naruto, anything on Cartoon Network). I started consuming media alone during the summer holidays when I would borrow a bag full of movies from Video Ezy and binge watch rom-coms, comedies and TV series. Then, when I moved out of home and into a boarding school, that’s when I started streaming and binge watching TV. Every since then, living as my own person, often alone, I find watching TV comforting.
So, there are my TV habits. Enjoy.
