COLUMN: The TV conspiracy theory

While this dictionary definition covers the technical aspects of TV, it does forget to mention one key element that all TV sets come with… a conspiracy.

At least at one point in your life, you have been a victim of the TV conspiracy. It doesn’t matter if you have cable or dish because we have all been victimized. In my household, we call the phenomena the TV Conspiracy Theory.

It’s probably a safe assumption that nearly everyone hates commercials. Here you are sitting in your favorite chair, watching your favorite show, when all of a sudden six minutes of commercials appear, blaringly loud and trying to sell you things that you don’t need.

Instead of listening to law firm and Serta mattress commercials, you escape by changing the channel with your magical wand we commonly refer to as the remote. You breath a sigh of relief until you realize commercials are playing on that channel too! You skip through several more channels. Commercials on every single channel!

It appears as though the TV networks have timed their commercials to be simultaneous so you can’t escape the indoctrination… I mean “advertisement.”

Now envision this next scenario: you’re waiting patiently to watch a program or you are at the climax of a show. You have your popcorn ready. You’re curled up under your favorite blanket. You just hope that storm doesn’t hit your area. Power goes out. Moments later it comes back on. But alas! The cable is still out.

It’s even worse for dish users. It could be nice and sunny outside with birds chirping, kids playing… the works. However, if your dish receives signal from another dish based somewhere else, you’re in trouble. While your dish could be as dry as a desert, the other dish could be wetter than Noah’s Ark.

Needless to say, your signal goes out. Then you have to wait for that storm to blow over that is nowhere near you. This happened to me at my grandparents’ house. Trust me, I know how irritating it can be.

One of my favorite lines I’ve ever heard was from a cartoon (“The Fairly Odd Parents” to be precise). The main character Timmy goes back in time to when his dad was a kid. They are sitting in a tent, and Timmy is telling scary stories to his father.

And here is Timmy’s story: “In the future, there will be 500 TV channels… but nothing to watch.” One little statement says so much. It’s true. Sometimes there is literally nothing on TV worth watching.

How many times have you been looking through all the channels to find something to watch? I know I’ve had this conversation in my head several times: “News. News. Soap Opera. Daytime Programming. Commercial. Congress sitting around doing nothing as usual. Commercial. Don’t get that channel. Commercial. Home shopping network. More news. Another Soap Opera. Whatever MSNBC is. Commercial. Oh Looney Tunes but it’s over. Propaganda. Spanish Soap Opera. Looks like I’m watching a DVD.”

When you finally think you have found something to watch, it becomes even more frustrating when the TV program lies to you. If you have Comcast or a company that allows you to scroll through channels, you know what I’m talking about.

You want to find something to watch, so you skim the channels. “Hey this really good movie is on!” you think to yourself. Eagerly, you click that channel but oops! Instead of viewing that really good movie (let’s pretend it’s “Terminator 2”), you find out that it’s really “Batman and Robin.” You were expecting to see Arnold Schwarzenegger butchering some evil robots but instead you get George Clooney butchering the role of Batman!

Well, in these aspects of the conspiracy at least you have both audio and visual. Sometimes the conspiracy will rob you of sound and/or picture.

I love musicals, so the other day when Grease came on I was pretty content. Let me tell you, it’s no fun to watch a musical with no sound. Try reading lips when people are singing and dancing, I wish you the best of luck.

Or how about watching an Asian karate movie with no picture? You’ll hear the cheesy rerecorded English dialogue, loud background music during fight sequences, and the sound effects of punches and swords.

As my dad would say, “It’s a conspiracy!” I think I’m starting to believe him. I get that TV is not perfect, and I’m not complaining. For the most part you don’t notice the conspiracy against you. It’s as if you are living blissfully unaware in the Matrix.

However, next time you watch TV, pay attention to some of these little tricks. You’ll see the TV Conspiracy Theory. Just wait. Next time you see a commercial, flip to another channel and see that I’m not lying. Beware of the conspiracy folks. It’s out there.

Jessica Brown is the photographer for the Barrow Journal. You can reach her at Jessica@picsbyjessica.com.