5 Weird Things I Learned By Purging Pop Culture From My Life

5

Cutting Out The Constant Need For Input Relieved A Stress I Didn't Know I Had

It was a massacre. As I cut shows loose so I could get some actual human sleep, a small stress lifted from my subconscious, one I didn't even know was here until I started hacking away at it.

Over the years, I got into so many different TV shows, games, movies, and books that you'd need a 1960s-sized computer to accurately display the number. It was all just so easily accessible. Eventually, I couldn't watch one episode of a show without feeling the sting of each unread book on my shelf. And I couldn't dive into a new game without at least giving a thought to all of the movies that'd been sitting on my Netflix queue since I started my account back when their only service was mailing DVDs to your house one at a time -- the way the original cavemen used to. Each item in my ever-expanding queue added more reason for my eventual nervous breakdown at the hands of Netflix's slate of original programming. Getting rid of each thing felt like unleashing a stream of farts after a date.

4

It Forced Me To Raise My Personal Standards

I was talking about all this with John Cheese, and he put it best: "It says something about us that we're so hungry for entertainment that we find ourselves settling for half-assed shows. Or worse, ones where people are like, 'Just give it until season five. If you don't like it by then, you're never going to like it.' So I have to sit through 50-100 episodes before it gets good? Fuck both that idea and your aunt."

3

It Made Me Realize That Characters Aren't Very Relatable

If any of us ever actually met some of the characters we're entertained by, within minutes we'd all be hastily scribbling their names onto our People Who Can Fuck Off Forever lists. I've always thought it was weird how there are personality types we'd never want to be associated with in real life ... but shove them in a 22-minute sitcom and we'll laugh for nine seasons as they continue representing everything that we hate about humanity.

2

I Realized How Often A Glowing Screen Played A Role In My Friendships

As I look back upon my life, I see the bounty of enlightening dick-and-fart-joke-laden conversations I've had with friends and lovers alike. I hold their memories dear. In preparation for this column, I found myself drifting off into them for reasons I couldn't place. Something was pulling me toward them, a looming menace in the background. As I got closer, an epiphany rolled over me: If the camera that recorded my memories panned to the side just a bit, in the background, like Slender Man hanging over my shoulder in a childhood photo that I drew, there was a bright screen acting as a buffer.

Strangely, it wasn't really a "Holy shit, I'm getting old and don't understand technology" moment. It was more "Holy shit, I had no idea how often that happened." It's not a good thing. It's not a bad thing. It's just a thing. Realizing that felt weird to me.

Almost all of my best conversations were sparked and sustained by the events unfolding on a screen. I mean, honestly, it's so much easier to jump-start a deep talk when Commando is on Cinemax and Schwarzenegger's suplexing yuppie cokeheads in phone booths. That's a five-hour conversation starter with multiple branching paths.

1

I Found Out That I Can Only Care About So Many Things

Years ago, our very own David Wong wrote a column about the Monkeysphere (otherwise known as Dunbar's number), a sociological theory which suggests there's a cognitive limit to the number of people you can give a shit about.

Sure, its primary application is to apply boundaries to human empathy and ask whether humanity is truly capable of helping one another on a grander scheme, but it's much more applicable to the CW show Supernatural. At one point, it was at the core of my pop culture fandom. As new and much better entertainment options entered my view, they naturally pushed Supernatural onto the outer rim of my capacity to give a shit about the adventures of two handsome denim models fighting ghosts for an eighth season that I'm now just watching out of sheer obligation.

The time I used to invest into caring about the Brett Thunderscrotum, P.I. urban fantasy book series was split with the Sargent Nazi Killer comic book series, which might be naturally phased out of my attention by a freshly discovered, riveting NPR podcast in which a guy from Brooklyn invades the life of some random guy from the South like he just discovered a new Amazonian tribe.

My attention span's reach used to be huge. Now, it's about the size of a Jamie Kennedy support rally. For me, that's a good thing. It means I can take my time and let a select few pieces of entertainment sink in. I can allow them to affect me. I can parse their plot points and empathize more deeply with their characters, rather than immediately rush off to the next distraction which I have about as much interest in as the credit sequence.

Look, I'm not telling you to give up pop culture or to take a shit in your PlayStation. I'm not some angry old man who thinks people can't connect as humans because their phones are evil. And I'll be goddamned if I'm going to be that asshole who's like, "You kids need to go outside and experience real life!" Because fuck that guy. I'm saying that when I started filtering out the things I was consuming just to consume, the quality went way up. At least it did after a brief detox, working my way through Brett Thunderscrotum, P.I. withdrawal.

But, seriously, you should take a shit in your PlayStation. That would be hilarious.

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For more, check out 6 Injustices Suffered by People Who Hate Popular Things and 4 Harsh Truths It's Time To Accept About Modern Pop Culture.

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