TV idiocrisy is coming

Journal Bill Dog's Journal: TV idiocrisy is coming 2

Journal by Bill Dog on Saturday June 14, 2014 @08:58PM

It started with the ability to show a network logo watermark. Networks would show a translucent version of their logo in the bottom corner for a few seconds, after resuming from a commerical break. Evidently someone who makes tons of money thought it was important that you be reminded where you're seeing the currently airing content.

I didn't mind that, at all. Stupid, but not really obnoxious. Then they moved onto the phase where they left that up all the time. I took me a while to train my brain to tune that out. Until I was able to, it annoyed the hell out of me.

Then they moved on to the next phase, of colored-in/opaque logos, that they leave up all the time. I.e. blocking part of the content (in that corner), all the time.

Then came promos for other shows on the network, after coming back from an ad break, that took up much or all of the bottom portion of what you're fucking trying to watch. I.e. all the commercials played, the movie has resumed, and you're trying to get back into it, and then here comes an overlay commercial, while the movie is still going. Sometimes it's animated, so basically you miss part of the movie they're showing.

So last night I'm flipping thru, and FX is showing some Ice Age or other cartoon animals movie (not at all my cup of tea, so I don't really know). Now I don't know if it had just come back from break or not, but it popped up an ad for the sequel to whatever it was, evidently now playing in theaters or coming soon.

I.e. they've taken the overlays from just promos for the network, to content-related adverts. I don't have for example a "smart TV", so maybe this has already started in other things.

I used to look forward to progress. When it meant a better picture, or more hp at an affordable price point, or easier and more advanced programming ways.

It's like standard of living is a bell curve. As technologies and advancement of capabilities has increased, our standard of living increased. But ever increasing capabilities doesn't seem to equal better quality of living, forever. My DVD player says "operation not permited by disc". WTF? Cars now have gadgetry to wrench the steering wheel from you or press the brakes behind your back. My dad can't go to a favorite finance site anymore, because it watched a few of his clicks and now doesn't show him general news but only the things relating the few topics it last remembers him clicking on. (I could try deleting cookies, as long as it's not fingerprinting him in other ways.)

So I don't think it's just old-fogeyism. I just like things that are better, not worse. And when you start running out of ways to make things better, I guess it's human nature to just keep on going, because the capabilities do. Didn't we used to be thinkers, or is that just another faulty assumption, about how the world works, of mine from childhood?

p.s. I have the flu, and feel miserable so I'm probably more babbling here than my normal level of babbling on.

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