judging on Internet

This is a topic from over here, started ;over here
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This is one of those things that kind of baffles me. The need to judge others, and judge them harshly, because they don't share your enthusiasm. I've never seen it in person, it's more of a response of, "Oh, you've never seen 'Game of Thrones'" and then the person wanders off to, presumably, find someone more interesting who has. I've never had anyone tell me specifically I'm a (expletive deleted) idiot because I don't watch or don't care for something.

(And yeah, I get that there's a good chance the person making that comment on twitter was being facetious, but still, there's that undercurrent of hostility, of silently judging the other person. And at any rate: some of us just generally interpret any teasing as having some hostile intent to it, given our personal histories).

I don't really watch the big popular shows. (Well, except for one, and its popularity is sometimes kind of underground, except maybe for seven year old girls). "Mad Men" kind of depressed me, even though the set design and wardrobe was fascinating. I just never felt interested in "Breaking Bad." I don't get HBO or Cinemax or any of the "premium" channels so I haven't seen the shows that run on them. I watch very few network shows (in fact, there have been a few sitcoms I've heard about and gone, "Wait, that's a show?" just to learn it has been running for three years.) I've seen a few minutes of Duck Dynasty and I get while a lot of people like the show and I get that they could, I just don't feel the need to watch it.

It seems weird, though, to call someone an "idiot" (or worse, a gerund-that-begins-with-f idiot) because they don't watch something. Or even because they do watch something. (For example, one of my current favorite shows, there are some people who just don't get how an adult could be a fan of it. Okay, fine - you don't like it. But please don't tell me I'm not allowed to).

But you see that over a lot of things: "OMG, how could you not like [BOOK]?" or "Wait, you've NEVER seen that movie? What rock do you live under?" And while on some level, yeah, it's the sort of good-natured teasing that happens, sometimes there does seem to be a core of hostility under it. (Don't even get me started on the stuff people have said to me because I choose not to have a smartphone. I don't particularly want one at this juncture and the plans area all really expensive compared to the cell phone plan I have now. Someday, for example, when all of the news stations go, "Nope, if you want actual news or weather, you'll have to look at our app, here on the television we're just going to sit and banter and do free commercials for local businesses," then I'll get a smartphone out of frustration at not being able to know if it's going to rain or not)

I will say, while we're griping and judging about television, I'm going to mention something I really dislike: the current lazy practice that most of the cable networks seem to have of doing "marathons" of the same show each night of the week. Okay, so it's probably fine if it's a show you like, but if it's one you don't care for (and many of the marathons seem to be stuff I don't care for), you flip listlessly between channels, hoping you will hit the lottery of one showing something you want to watch. And even if you LIKE the show, usually the marathons wind up burning through all the back episodes of it (How many times can a person see the crabby-old-grandma-who-inadvertently-ate-pot-brownies on Untold Stories of the ER and not be totally sick of it? Not very many, in my opinion).

And I get that I have weird interests and tastes in things, but I will note some frustration that the channel that used to be the Learning Channel is now mostly reality type shows, and the Discovery channel is now mostly reality type shows, and the National Geographic Channel is now mostly reality type shows, and the History Channel is now mostly UNreality type shows (like Ancient Aliens)....and they all seem to run a lot of shows on those endless marathon loops.

I think part of my recent knitting slump is that there's nothing good on the television. Complex knitting is not something I can do while reading (though simple knitting is), but I like to have a program to "listen" to.

I wish there were still radio dramas and comedies like there used to be. I know, Sirius has a "classic radio" channel, but so far I've resisted buying a receiver for in my house. Still, I think maybe there WOULD be an audience for radio dramas or comedies like there used to be.