My kids love to watch YouTube videos of other kids playing with toys…
Me: What are you watching?
Charlotte (age 6): A video of a boy building a Lego castle
Me: Why don’t you actually play with Legos rather than watch someone else play with them?
Charlotte: Why do you watch cooking shows when you don’t cook?
Besides the accuracy of Charlotte’s comment, this got me thinking about why we choose to watch what we do? Why are we drawn to certain topics or themes?
We all lead busy, hectic lives. Why do we choose to spend our hard-earned downtime watching certain things rather than others?
Some people use TV as a way to live vicariously through the characters that grace their screens. In my case, this is very true with the cooking show example (as my daughter so eloquently pointed out).
I enjoy watching chefs effortlessly create masterpieces since cooking is nowhere in my box of tricks. Similarly, the fact that I’m tone-deaf definitely enhances my love for American Idol and The Voice; it would be so fun to be able to sing!
Other people watch TV to escape from their everyday lives. The last thing they want to do is watch anything that resembles their lives — maybe because it is too real or often because it is too fake. I have several friends who are doctors and lawyers, and most of them refuse to watch hospital or legal shows because they cannot handle how inaccurate the TV versions of their livelihoods are portrayed.
Wait, you mean every day in the ER doesn’t bring a once-in-a-lifetime case (some days even more than one!) for Meredith Grey and other beautiful doctors to solve? Or that extremely high-profile murder doesn’t happen on a Saturday, and the trial is underway the following week, with whip-smart law students as the defense attorneys?
On the other hand, I think some people are drawn to TV shows that are familiar and relatable to their lives.
We sometimes choose what to watch to see how other people are doing things we hope to do in the future. Maybe to provide inspiration? Or maybe to see what not to do?
Years ago, I noticed an interesting connection between my own TV viewing and major life events. In high school, I loved watching the show “Felicity” and couldn’t wait to get to college. After college and graduate school, I found myself watching “A Wedding
Story,” and guess what? I got engaged a year later.
Then came my obsession with “House Hunters,” and although I still find it crazy that a goat yoga instructor has an $800,000 budget for her house hunting (that was an actual episode), I was later inspired to buy two houses of my own.
Next came TLC’s “A Baby Story,” which resulted in my own two adorable little girls. Then Chip and Joanna convinced me I needed to renovate my kitchen to achieve the perfect farmhouse chic. Done.
This was followed by a very witty and funny series, “A Girlfriend’s Guide to Divorce,” and you can guess what happened next…
So, is what we choose to watch somehow a predictor of our major life events? Is my Netflix queue actually more accurate than a fortune cookie? Should I finally throw away that magic eight ball? Think of all the money I will save on those tarot card readers!
So, I know you are all thinking, “Robin, based on what you’re currently watching, what’s in store for you in the coming years?” Great question. It looks like my future will take an interesting turn: I might be moving to the Ozarks to launder money for a drug cartel, become a world champion chess player — or perhaps it will be off to London to become the Queen of England.
