Why the TV Rarely Interests Me Anymore

My childhood days revolved around television, both local and global channels. Sundays were never sleep-in days; I woke up promptly at 8am to catch Doraemon, Crayon Sinchan and what not. When I developed interest in the English language, I moved on to Powerpuff Girls, Dexter’s Lab and occasionally, Spongebob Squarepants! My teenage years pushed me to watch Lizzie McGuire, Even Stevens and That’s So Raven (which I still catch on Youtube; they were and still are amazing entertainment!). I also used to enjoy documentaries on historical buildings as I love good old spooky stories and some Animal Planet documentaries.

Looking back on those days, I think its pretty peculiar how I don’t even bother switching on the telly today. Whenever I feel the need for some entertainment, I either select a movie I already have or watch a video off Youtube, mostly interviews to improve my English diction and even some Hindi interviews; I am dying to speak fluent Hindi.

I decided to conduct a little experiment to learn more about why I stopped watching television; whether it was simply about me being too busy lately, or has TV stopped entertaining? So, I dedicated some time in a day to surf TV channels and see what’s been happening in the box. The following concludes my experience:

First of all, there is a lack of quality shows. I am not talking about production quality, which seems to be at its highest ever. I am talking about the quality of their content. As much as I hate trash-talking, our local channels are the subject of my disapproval. There are certain reality shows (have you seen Dahsyat? My goodness!) in which the hosts show no sense in hosting, speak in derogatory manner, scream in decibels only dogs can understand, dress like they come from outer space or possess minuscule clothing materials. Also, no morality ever comes up in some shows I’ve watched. The good old shows taught us so much (Lizzie McGuire taught us how its okay to have insecurities growing up and that our family and friends will be there to catch us when we fall, That’s So Raven taught us not to take our talent for granted as they may put us in sticky situations, Even Stevens taught us how annoying siblings can be but when push comes to shove, they’ll be right where we need them to be). I don’t see any more shows like these, that we can relate to while watching.

Secondly, there is way too much commercialization. Product sponsorship seems to be the only thing keeping the TV shows going. A little less than half the time, there are advertisements all over shows. They are bombarded to us mid segments and even within segments in the form of advertisements banners, text ticker and pop-up bubbles. They are so distracting and prohibit us from doing what we came there to do; which is watching some good old TV.

Third; the sensationalization of news. News make things bigger than they seem to be, which ends up looking hyperbolic. Scenes of people crying, bickering and explicit behavior are hyped up which generates unnecessary attention.  Not just that, news channels seem to lose its focus nowadays. I am not here to diminish faith in our local news channels but upon comparison, take a look at their topics I’ve compiled over the past month. Indonesian news: LGBT is not acceptable in any society (hold on, I will dedicate a special blog for these bigots who claim this), Ahok’s Chinese descent, what Jokowi is NOT doing, Jakarta floods, rape everywhere and more. Global news: threat of world war 3 from Syria, economic meltdown, lost of oil and others. See what I mean? How easily we get depressed by watching news. Sure, news channels are meant to report facts but sadly, they focus on things that cause negative alert in the society. How is that there are very less news channels that report what celebrities are doing to reduce famine in Africa? How exo-skeletons are being developed to help the elderly people have better lives? We are so lost in negativity because news channels bring so much of them.

Fourth, how TV channels bring behavioral changes by the westernization of eastern countries. This is not always a bad thing as I have noticed some positives as well. The positives, for instance, more people are being more open-minded about different people’s sexuality. Also, racism is slightly reduced (in very certain cases) because of less stereotyping. What I mean is, people now know not all Indians work in 7-Eleven, drive taxis or work in Asian countries as blue-collar laborers. At the same time, people now respect dark-skinned people more and don’t associate them with crime. But, we cannot avoid the negativity it brings to behavioral changes. I can only speak for my own community and not for others. There is a whole new generation that speaks crudely to their parents, change spouses like changing their bed sheets, think that secret extra-marital affairs are okay, tell the world that your bag is designer made (“Hey I love your purse!” comes with a reply of “Thanks sweety, its Chanel and my husband bought it for me from Paris for whatever dollars”) and what not. Sweetheart, there is a reason why they are called “shows” because they are scripted. Not all Westerners behave that way and you are going out of your limbs to prove how modern you are. Odd.

Fifth, its lack of purpose. Channels are named something and then display something else. Remember the time when MTV actually showed real music? I used to love watching shows that had a countdown of the best music videos and highly anticipated for the #1. Now, music channels play shows that have no relation whatsoever to their promised offering such as “16 and Pregnant”. Okay, I’m not sure if they’re still airing that but apart from it being completely irrelevant to music, they glorify early, unmarried pregnancy. How is this show even on air? Speaking of lack of purpose, have you noticed how news channels would re-play the same 10 seconds recording over and over and over and over again due to lack of content ownership? How is this called “news” if there is nothing new at all?

Sixth, and this is my pet hate. The glorification of celebrities. To be honest and at the risk of sounding superficial, I love celebrities. I love how they dress, bring themselves on the red carpet and answer interviews so wittily. But, this comes to a point only where these people are appreciated for the kind of work that they do. The moment they get exposed only for their physical appearance, daily life irrelevancies and scandals, it gets so annoying. For example, why do I need to care if Jennifer Lawrence eats 10 times a day? And why should we make a flurry if Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner demands a sex change? And how many days did Kim Kardashian’s marriage last? I understand and agree that these are the little things that continue shaping our interests towards celebrities, but when these tiny facts get overhyped, it gets crappy. Really crappy.

I believe this post would be incomplete if I didn’t include Indian serials. Simply because, Indian serials are a big chunk of our lives. Our grandmas and moms watch it and we irrevocably end up consuming its content. Which is sad as they’re annoying as hell. I relate to Indian serials because I am exposed to it, now there could be Spanish, African, Puerto Rican shows that are the same way. A plot line spans for more than weeks. A woman delivering a baby can form the plot line for 2 weeks. They show unrealistically evil mother- and sister-in-laws, place women as belonging in the kitchen and I’m sure you all notice this, the obsession with zoomed-in close-ups of everyone n the frame with overly-dramatized facial expressions. This really needs to stop.

Not that there are no good shows. Of course there are brilliant shows, with encouraging hosts, covering real aspects of life and unravels things we otherwise turn a blind eye to. My favorite is The Ellen DeGeneres Show (she’s openly gay and has carved roads for people of her kind - salute! Besides, she’s hilarious and so warm, she’s my idol) and Koffee with Karan (although he does ask some superficial questions, he reveals in-depth facts about celebrities and talks about what makes them real human beings, no different than we are). Some are also inspirational although I don’t catch them often such as The Oprah Winfrey Show (we all know Oprah, yes?) and Kick Andy (local TV show that exposes people of lower social class, what they do for a living and what we can do to help).

By this time, you’re probably judging me as the know-it-all brag who watches TV only for its intellectual content. Not at all, I actually like watching some shows for the heck of entertainment. Currently, I am waiting for Devious Maids and Mistresses to come out with a new season. Sheldon Cooper on The Big Bang Theory is my current addiction. My point here would be, watch whatever shows you want as long as it remains to be a show you like and not your way of life. If we ALL followed those shows, we’d be plotting to kill our husbands, run away with the underage cutie next door, wear stilettos at home and get a new plastic surgery every year. See what I mean?

It saddens to me know that our future generation might never have what we had growing up; reliable entertainment which doesn’t give heart attacks to parents. I hope we can all show deeper intelligence in choosing shows that do not affect our moral values, because I’m not sure TV producers are going to do that for a long time to come.

The Hashtag Abuse

This is such a first-world , 21^st century problem, so I don’t expect everyone to understand it (I love you, mom, will explain what a hashtag is!).

So, most of us born as Gen-Ys and Millennials probably understand what a hashtag is. Thanks to Twitter and most recently, Instagram, a hashtag is more than just a symbol on the landline phone. A hashtag is a way to connect with people all over the world with the same topic in mind, same thoughts and is a way to categorise these thoughts and posts for those willing to learn more about a certain something.

Sadly, a huge chunk of Internet and social media users are yet to understand how a hashtag functions. It’s fine if something is new and yet to circulate, but the usage of hashtags has been around for a while now so you’d think people have gotten their minds around it. There are certain hashtags that are wrongly done, irrelevant and sometimes, just plain irritating. Some of these are my personal opinion and some are based on conversations over coffee with friends. If somehow you have been committing some of these, don’t feel terrible. It takes a while to get to it and you’re not necessarily wrong. I could be wrong. Nobody made me queen of the world. Chill.

1.     #those #who #hashtag #like #this

Darling, that’s now how you do it. You may have sentences as captions but pick out the right verbs and nouns to highlight the essence of the post. Hashtagging that way is purely a violation of the usage of social media. As said above, hashtags categorise thoughts, so who looks for thoughts using the word #who? Or #this? What do you expect to see when using those words?

For instance, the hashtag #sunshine is often correlated to a picture of the beach, garden, anywhere bright where the sun actually shines. If you caption sentences, you can do these:

#beautiful #sunset today at the #beach

or

#beautifulsunset today at the #beach

See what I did there? Click on #beach and you’ll obviously get pictures of, um, hmmm, uhhh, beaches?!

2.     Irrelevant hashtags

Now this is more than making mistakes. This is simply annoying. I use hashtags to look out for networking and community building so as someone in the fitness industry, I look out for #YogyakartaGym, #FitnessYogya, #MuscleBuilding to lookout for people in the same field to connect with. But often, I find people who hashtag words that HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO CONNECTION to the pictures. Why? Like, why? You upload a picture of your cute dog and then caption #StarbucksIndonesia. I am serious, by the way, this has happened. Unless your dog is drinking coffee, or has a Starbucks dog outfit, there is no reason for that hashtag. Learn to use, not abuse.  

3.     Over hashtagging

I don’t think there are rules per se about the number of hashtags you’re allowed to use in a post but I think there’s gotta be a personal limit. Some people go on and on in their hashtags. I mean, how many words can there be in a picture? Please do not take the literal meaning of “a picture is worth a thousand words”. A picture of your selfie is most welcomed but not with these

#selfie #happyme #happyday #Sunday #jakarta #lipstick #maccosmetics #prettygirl #champagne #salmon #protein #lovefood #happygirlsaretheprettiest #dietwhatdiet #cheatday #gluttony #mygirls #friendsforever #dinnerwithgirls #icecream #funday #followforfollow #F4F #like4like OKAY STAAAAHHHHPPPP IT!

Draw the line, somewhere. Just, somewhere.

4.     Misspelling hashtags

I’m a total mistyping victim, ironic that I’m a bit of a grammar nazi. So I totally get this pain. But be careful while hashtagging, misspelling your hashtag means that other people probably don’t get what you mean, cannot reach you, or simply think you’re a bad typist. Proofread and do it again.

5.     Using punctuations

In relation to being a grammar nazi, it definitely feels odd to eliminate punctuations while hashtagging hashtags do not recognize punctuations! If you want to hashtag, for example, “don’t mess with me”, you’ll have to hashtag it as #dontmesswithme because if you hashtag #don’tmesswith me, the only clickable hashtag with me #don because the words after the punctuation will be cut off. It’s just how it works, okay?

6.     #blessed

Yeah, a lot of people use #blessed as a hashtag. I actually don’t have an issue because you should feel the gratitude of having a great life, yes? But anyway, #blessed is the new taboo in Instagram, kind of like a humble brag, except that it’s not so humble. In the spirit of social media usage independence, go ahead and use the hashtag. But read the following excerpt from NY Times,

“Calling something “blessed” has become the go-to term for those who want to boast about an accomplishment while pretending to be humble, fish for a compliment, acknowledge a success (without sounding too conceited), or purposely elicit envy. ‘Blessed’ is used now where in the past one might have said ‘lucky,’ said the linguist Deborah Tannen. But what makes these examples humble-brags is not ‘blessed’ itself but the context: telling the world your fiancé is the best or that you’ve been invited to do something impressive. Actually I don’t even see the ‘humble’ in it. I just see ‘brag’ (Bennett, 2014).

7.     #mysisterisbetterthanyours #mymotherisbetterthanyours

Actually this goes beyond a hashtag. This also goes for captions like “my sister > your sister”. Wow, congratulations for implementing the correct understanding of “greater than” signage. You now have the intellectual ability of a fifth grader.

These annoy the living hell out of me. Simply because, of course your sister is better than mine, for you, that is. And of course you have a brother who’s greater than mine, for you too! You don’t need to state the obvious. If you say you use for it fun, well that’s your choice but I don’t understand it. If you use it to genuinely downgrade everyone else’s siblings, you’re a douche. In one of my social media understanding courses, my professor quotes “those who are insecure find it vital to compare lives with others. It’s funny. My friend receives some bagels from his sibling and suddenly, MY brother becomes a bad brother for NOT sending me some”. Couldn’t agree more.

That’s it, folks. Now, I’m going to scroll way down to my oldest Instagram photos to see how many hashtags abuses have I made. Hope you enjoyed this post and learned a little something about hashtags! I’d say XOXO but for the sake of this post, let me say #O#O   JJJ

Living with Insecurities

Let’s face it. All of us have some kind of insecurity, may they be physical or otherwise. The society we live in has created a labyrinth filled with social stigma; one that’s difficult as hell to walk out of. This social stigma has made us - women, especially, reduce ourselves to believe we fall below the high standards imposed upon all of us. Most of us either feel we’re too fat, too thin, too short, too tall, too dark, too pale, too dumb, too outspoken, too quiet, too irritating, too insignificant and so on. Anyway, I’ve compiled a list of things I believe bring insecurity, but they shouldn’t. Please keep in mind that these are purely my personal opinion and I’m not trying to prove any point. You may disagree with me and that’s perfectly fine.

DON’T be insecure about these, ladies:

      1.     Your occupation

“She has a degree but she is teaching Kindergarten?”, “Why is she earning so little?”, “Why isn’t he working in a field he has studied in?”. So many questions, where are the answers? They don’t exist, probably because we don’t owe ANYBODY an explanation of what we want to do in our lives. People will always question what we do for a living and why we choose to do it. If you’re a teacher, they claim you sing nursery rhymes for a living. If you’re a personal trainer, they say you earn money only using your body and not your brains. If you’re a model, they say you don’t wear clothes. If you’re a working mom, they say you have no time for your kids. If you’re a stay-at-home mom, they say you do nothing but manicures when the baby’s asleep.

What you choose to do is entirely a choice you make on your own. Today, making a comfortable living for yourself is obviously a primary consideration when looking for a job, but at the end of the day, you’d like to do whatever makes you happy. And if you’re content, the society shouldn’t matter to you. You’re not eating out of their plates anyway.

      2.     How you look in pictures

Once upon a time, I was guilty of this insufferable insecurity. When I saw a tagged picture of me in Facebook, I’d quickly observe every part of that picture and then decide whether or not to keep the tag or untag myself. Honestly, I was lame. If you still do this, you really shouldn’t.

I stopped right after I started believing that I was so much more than a bad picture of myself. And you are too. A bad picture doesn’t signify a bad life or a bad person. It was clearly, just a bad Kodak moment.

By the way, a little fact, years ago I got tagged in a somewhat-less-than-pretty-picture of me but I let it be. My husband (back then a stranger) saw it and somehow liked the picture which then got him to adding me on Facebook. Honestly, for someone out there, the picture you despised may seem utterly adorable to someone out there. Of course, my grandma loves all of my pictures LOL.

Another fact. Someone once pointed at me on how we’re not supposed to squint our eyes, stick out our tongues on purpose for social media uploads. I found this utterly dumb. If you’re an idiot like me who loves making dumb faces in real life, why can’t we do the same in the virtual world. Seriously, people put up facades online and this is something I cannot keep up with.

      3.     Your relationship status

I know single people who freak out every Valentine’s Day or in fact, every day, because they’re single. They’re probably calling me out on this point because “she’s married. How would she know?”. I know, because I was single for many years before I met this stranger I now call my husband. People seem to think they’re incomplete without a partner, or that they’re just one part of a single whole. Honestly, what do they expect to find in a partner that can make feel whole again?

You, my dear, were born without a partner. You survived your whole life without a permanent fixture of a partner and can probably go on for much longer. The more you crave for a significant other, the more vibes you’re sending off as being needy. Take it easy, they’re out there.

      4.     Your physical appearance

If your physical appearance physically and literally bothers you, then please, be insecure and do something about it. But if they only bother other people, tell them to shove it.

I’ve been told, yes actually been told to my face that 1. I need to lose belly fat, 2. I need braces, 3. I need laser treatment because my glasses apparently aren’t “cool”, 4. My thumb looks ugly. None of which I have bothered listening to HAHA. I still have a belly (I love you, Coca-Cola!), I am secretly proud of my rabbit teeth, I LOVE MY GLASSES and I still bite the nail on my thumb to death. LOL. So be it. I don’t care.

This goes back to our society and their imposition on how a girl should look like. If you are one of them who have a list that sounds like “long hair, fair skin, long nails, …, …, …”, get a life, darling. Oh and while you’re at it, a new list too (which says intelligence at the top). By the way, those stretch marks, we all have them. Chill.

  

      5.   Make-up

I have nothing against make-up. In fact, I love make-up! I honestly find it an effort to walk by Sephora without mentally making a list of what I want.

But (there’s always a but with me, isn’t there?), when it reaches a point where you find it physically impossible to leave home without make-up, you know you’re in trouble. How less confidence would you need to have if you’re unable to feel good in your own skin?

Parents, this is where I think you should come in. I first encountered eyeliners when I was 19 years old. 19 !!! And it wasn’t just me, it was a whole lot of people who I see in their naked face everyday. Now, it’s a generation of 12 year olds with a fully furnished face. Please, mommies, do your thing.

      6.     Age

Granted, I’m 27. A baby for most people. I am yet to figure out why people lie about their age and in fact sometimes hide it. I personally find it so weird. What is there to worry about your age? Sure, you can do various tricks to stop physical aging (Botox, facelifts, facial exercise, thread implants, drink water, facials) but there is nothing we can do to stop the literal aging, so why fret?

Personally, I don’t support going under the knife but each to their own.

Anyway, I’ll let you know how I feel about my age in 23 years.

      7.     Being too opinionated

I’m gonna chase down to the point. If someone says you’re too smart/too opinionated, that person isn’t for you. Clearly, that person either has no guts to raise their standards to match yours or simply isn’t as intelligent enough to hold a conversation beyond the intellect of a teaspoon. Could it be that instead of you being too strong, they are too weak? Think about it. NEVER ever dumb yourself down for anyone. NEVER compromise your thoughts just because someone thinks you’re wrong. NEVER doubt yourself because people have a hard time accepting your train of thoughts.

Personally, I had a lot of insecurities, which eventually I grew out of (some of them, at least). But at the end of the day, I’m not sure if we can live life in a fully secured manner. There will always be something we’re not happy about and that, according to me, up to a certain standard, is healthy enough. If something makes us insecure, then we should be able to do something about it. For instance, if our weight ties us down, hit the gym. If our acne annoys us, start taking care of your skin. But if the situation is such that we cannot control/change, then by all means, we should work to eradicate that insecurity, like what I said earlier about our age.

Life is too short to live under someone else’s shadow.