TV snobs (I are/not one)

[MamaJunebug]

Lunched with a neighbor lady who, with her husband, used to be way into TV miniseries. They'd gather with friends weekly to watch DVR'ed episodes of the one about Rome, or Mad Men, or PBS/BBC things, any number of spectacular productions.

Today she said they watch only Longmire (first I'd heard of it - about a law enforcement officer in Wyoming, dealing with all kinds of stuff including Native rez situations) and ... whatever the current Aaron Sorkin show is. Because she so respects Aaron's non-use of laugh tracks, loved West Wing, etc.

At the mention of no laugh tracks, I recommended Bunheads to her. She looked vaguely disinterested, so I mentioned that it was laughtrackless and otherwise a lot like Gilmore Girls (she'd never watched GG, ok, then) and so then I enthused that the mature leads both are Tony award winners.

Her look was - I am sure of this - both bored and arch; I could almost see the thought bubble above her head showing, "Well, aren't you just pathetic, making it all about Tony awards, from Broadway, big pretentious deal. TV snob."

I started thinking about it - maybe I am! I haven't liked TV since I was a kid. Never the kind to just turn it on for "background noise." OTOH I readily confess that I will watch Mob Wives Chicago for the balance of the season, as well as RHONY. They're my first and only Housewives shows. I like RHONY in spite of the fact that even Carole Radziwill - who I first thought was a little more than just a past-prime golddigger or a child of privilege - is pretty darn tacky.

But I digress. So what think you all: Are there TV snobs? Are you one? I used to watch Fashion Police & The Soup, but have given them both up, since Joan's pretty repetitious and I don't watch enough reality to get most of The Soup.

Oops, I do hanker after Community and may watch MadMen when it comes back.

Who's a snob? What does being a snob include? Can one be a tacky TV snob?

Discuss. Or don't! It's just quiver full of w.d. stuff, after all! :D

[Deleted07]

I prefer the term, selective! :-p lol!

There really is only a select few shows I do like. I can probably count on 1 hand the current shows I watch.

I cannot stand reality tv at all, nor do I like Sitcoms. I also can't stand shows centered on Sex. Just isn't my thing... (I never understood how Sex and the City or Greys Anatomy or Desperate Housewives were so well liked).

SO yeah now I'm thinking of it, I guess I too am a TV Snob. But I'm OK with that. :-D

[terranova]

I admit to rolling my eyes when someone tells me they like Jersey Shore or the local equivilant. Shows like The View and talk shows in general make me retch, and I can't stand the E network, so maybe I'm a snob.

But then I like home improvement shows and cooking shows like Masterchef and Top Chef and Jamie Oliver and River Cottage. So who am I to judge.

[JesusFightClub]

Hmm, it's just different tastes for different folk, surely?

We don't have a TV, my flatmates and comrades like to make out it's on political principle (which I guess could be snobby) but the real reason is we can't afford the licence :oops: so I'm not too up on my telly shows. I go out to the pub and watch Arsenal play on Sky Sports, because Arsenal is my family's team of choice. (We have the tattoos to prove it.)* Or if I'm round at my mum's, she likes the ones where people fix up their homes, like you Terranova. Or the ones where people sell their stuff off at auction. She gets all :clap: over those "Ooh, he's all the way up to £100 on his set of fake Chinese paper plates! Who would have thought! I hope he gets all the way up to £150 towards that holiday in Finland he wanted!"

All seems like harmless fun to me, though I reduce my viewing pleasure to a. Arsenal, b. shit blowing up and c. comedy which is actually funny. If someone could figure out a way to combine all those I'd be in viewing heaven. (Although Arsenal and comedy do sometimes go together, it's more likely to be tragedy).

Not sure of the appeal of things like Jersey Shore. But there are many things I do not understand about what appeals to other people, doesn't make them bad or wrong for liking it. TV peace!

*My brother once suddenly blurted out "I love Arsene Wenger [Arsenal's manager]. But not in a gay way. I just wanted you all to know." At the time, we were sat in a witness room and about to go into a murder trial.

My brother rocks :)

Edited because it helps to get names right

[Arete]

I'm sort of middle of the road in my TV tastes, not that I watch a lot. NCIS, NCIS LA, True Blood when I'm at a friends who have HBO.

I guess the most embarassing thing I watch is The Deadliest Catch.

Yeah, I definitely can't qualify as a TV snob.

[freejoytoo]

I am in the middle. I HATE it when people have the TV on for background noise and rarely watch television in general, but I do have guilty pleasure shows.

[Loveday]

I am in the middle. I HATE it when people have the TV on for background noise and rarely watch television in general, but I do have guilty pleasure shows.

I think you just described me. :lol: I have a few favourites that I try never to miss (Downton Abbey, Antiques Roadshow, Hoarders, and Who Do You Think You Are?*), and sometimes of course I pop a movie into the DVD player, but otherwise I don't turn the TV on. In fact, if I lived alone, days might go by in which the TV would sit there collecting dust. Unfortunately, I'm married to a man who thinks having the TV on is necessary from the time he wakes up until he goes upstairs to bed, whether he's watching it or not. :roll:

*and I'm in mourning because WDYTYA? has apparently been canceled. :cry:

[freejoytoo]

As a rule I dislike reality TV intensely but sometimes I put on Supernanny or Wifeswap (and then hate myself :lol:). I loved the 1900 House but don't think of it as reality TV, at least not in the same vein as rubbish like The Hills. I also loved Desperate Housewives and, this is really embarrassing, Neighbours (which is who the person in my avvie is from) and Home and Away. I watch them very intermittently though at one point I made an effort not to miss it.

My parents actually got rid of the TV a few years ago but I watch things on iplayer sometimes. My mum claims not to watch crap TV but she likes all those dancing shows and The Apprentice (which I can't STAND).

I will always love Friends!

[Maggie Mae]

I'm a recovering TV Snob. I didn't watch much, if any, tv in high school and actively despised it. My dad is one of the people who would have it on from the second he got up (today show) to the second he went to bed. It was always loud and blaring either a 'wholesome' sitcom/drama/western repeat or cable news during the morning, then the local news at noon, then the NBC soaps, then cable news, then local news from 5-6, NBC news at 6, then some sort of sitcom (usually repeats of friends or everybody loves raymond). It was horrible. It was so loud and awful and I hated everything about television. Then I went to college and I would watch some of what other people were watching, which was never very interesting (reality shows, mostly). But I didn't like being called a snob, so I hung out with my roommate and watched stuff. And we watched a lot of crap and some really good shows on DVD, and I think that was the year Project Runway started and I was hooked. I always managed to explain it to myself by saying that I worked really hard in school and deserved to just veg out and watch something mindlessly stupid and at least it wasn't completely pointless like Big Brother or Survivor.

Anyway, now I don't really care what people watch, but I really dislike the reality tv genre on principal. It's so weird to me that we are willing to make the dumbest people famous for nothing other than auditioning to be on a tv show at the right time. Plus it's not like it's open to everyone - you have to live in a certain area or be really wealthy or already famous. The shows like The Amazing Race or Survivor or some of the shows on Disco are okay because they occasionally reward people who are clever or able to perform some sort of physical activity. American Idol and the singing shows turned me off with the audition episodes. It's really mean, IMO to exploit and mock publicly people who can't sing and think they can or are nervous and don't do so well. Plus Ryan Seacrest is ugly ImO and I don't like him.

Disclaimer: my shift key hates me. everything i posted is my opinion and i'm really not judgmental about what other people watch.

[Witsec7]

I don't own a tv and only watch TV on my computer. I tend to use it as an escape, or sometimes for entertainment. Sometimes I'll watch an episode of a trainwreck reality show, but by and large network tv in the US doesn't hold much appeal to me.

[Seven Severn]

I love TV, but I'm pretty picky. I love me a well-written sitcom (Arrested Development, Better Off Ted, Seinfeld, Community, Parks and Rec), an engaging drama (Walking Dead, Mad Men, Firefly, Sherlock, Downton Abbey), and various non-fiction science or history shows. Does this make me a snob? If so, then so be it. :)

[lilwriter85]

I guess I'm in the middle. I do love well written TV shows like Mad Men, Arrested Development, Parks and Rec, etc., but they are some shows that I watch in which the writing isn't great, but other aspects make the shows entertaining. There are several shows in which the cast members make the shows watchable. But the shows I can't really really stand anymore are crime procedural shows and medical dramas. I loved ER during its early years, but over time the quality lessened a bit. I was never able to get into Grey's Anatomy and I thought some of the cast members particularly Sandra Oh and Chandra Wilson were overrated. When it comes to TV dramas, I prefer serialized shows over procedural type shows.

[InkyGirl]

Mr. Inky and I were just discussing this. We don't have local TV or cable or satelit TV. We don't even have Netflix anymore. We do, however, have a big DVD collection. The two or three shows I do wish to watch I catch on hulu. I will admit to turning on a DVD when I'm home alone or before going to bed when Mr inky is at work because I don't like the silence. It's a terrible habit, I know.

[OddlyAmused]

I'd say that I'm somewhere in the middle. I can't stand shows like Jersey Shore, Real Housewives of Wherever, American Idol, or America's Got Talent, but I do enjoy a lot of cooking competition shows and shows like House Hunters. I also watch some comedy and some procedurals along with shows from the BBC and HBO. I guess I really just like a mix of everything!

[She Who Laughs]

I used to like House Hunters until it was revealed what a big, fat, fake the show is.

[Gizmola]

I have very weird tastes and while I don't really consider myself a tv snob, I do tend to judge people who become deeply, emotionally involved with "Dancing With the Stars." (I know someone who writes angry letters - not emails - actual letters - to the tv network when they kick off someone she, an amateur ballroom dancer - feels is talented and keeps on some personality she hated. She's mental, I tell you). I hate reality show...yet...I did watch 5 hours of Toddlers and Tiaras once in a "I can't believe this trainwreck" sort of way. Plus, I watched 2 seasons of "Making the Team: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders." So whom am I to talk about someone who watches Jersey Shore or Cake Boss?

When I was growing up I loved:

Mary Tyler Moore

Little House on the Prairie (major LIW fangirl - my grandmother even made me a dress and bonnet)

The Bob Newhart Show

Gilligan's Island

Nanny & the Professor

Family Affair

The Donna Reed Show

Route 66

(between old reruns on my grandparents' b&w tv in rural Oklahoma and the advent of Nick at Night in the late '80's, I caught up on a lot of really classic shows)

As I've grown up I've developed rather pedestrian tastes:

The Sopranos

Friends

Dharma and Greg (really just the first season before they tried to adopt the baby)

Mad Men

True Blood (though without HBO now I'm out of the loop)

Sex & the City (though now it feels a little shallow and dated if I go watch it again - the movies sucked big time)

Downton Abbey

Gossip Girl (the flu + bronchitis + ear infection last October = insane tv habits)

30 Rock

Grey's Anatomy (though now I "watch" it while cleaning the house; it's so predictable)

Roseanne (first 6-7 seasons - once they won the lottery it was horrid, horrid, horrid)

Ab Fab

old Monty Python

Rocky & Bullwinkle (God bless Netflix)

House (I actually liked the ending even though I think it jumped the shark when he & Cuddy got it on)

But I can't stand the CSI-type shows, thought The Tudors was too sex-crazed to be very deep, hated "Curb Your Enthusiasm," miss the original Bob Vila "This Old House," would rather gouge out my eyes than watch Pawn shop shows, Hoarders, Kardashians-anything, have never been able to get involved with "Parks and Recreation," have never seen an episode of "West Wing," left "ER" once Anthony Edwards left, and will probably never, ever watch "Game of Thrones."

[ElphabaGalinda]

I watch far too much TV, and I religiously watch a lot of shows. Right now True Blood is a big one, and I was into Game of Thrones too. Other shows I like include Once Upon a Time, Grey's Anatomy and Bones.

I think everyone has their own tastes, so to each his own! The only real TV snob I know of, she won't watch something simply because it's too popular and mainstream. I think that's a horrible reason not to watch something if that's your only reason, and that's what a TV snob is, IMO. I also really hate when other people criticize other peoples' TV shows, and that has a bit of snobbery. It's one thing to say you hate whatever show, because of whatever reason you have. But it is TV snobbery to say other people are stupid for liking certain shows. Or act like you're better than other people because you only watch certain kinds of things.

I have very particular tastes, and I hate a lot of shows that other people love. But it's all a matter of preference. I also say I have no guilty pleasures, because I won't be guilty about something that gives me pleasure.

In summary, it's not what someone watches that makes you a TV snob, it's how they act about what they watch.

[MamaJunebug]

I ...,....

In summary, it's not what someone watches that makes you a TV snob, it's how they act about what they watch.

Oooh, I like that!

I like all the responses--a good mama don't play faves. ;)

[freejoytoo]

I have to admit that I do get quite put off things with hype. I tried Glee and couldn't stand it, nor did I like Big Brother, but I do have exceptions - I unashamedly love Friends and always will and am also very fond of Frasier and How I Met Your Mother.

[patsymae]

I live for years at a time without TV and then when I have one, like now, watch pretty much the gamut--the really good stuff, some middle stuff and some really awful stuff, too.

Anyway, I don't believe TV snobs. When I was in college I was apparently the only person who watched anything other than PBS--or occasionally someone would admit to watching 60 Minutes--but then Trivial Pursuit came out and it turned out that all the people who said they never watched commercial TV pretty much knew everything about the same shows that the hoi polloi were watching (either would have to admit you knew this stuff or lose the game--rock and a hard place).

[Naga Viper]

Sometimes I'm a snob, sometimes I'm not. I watch a number of competitive reality shows, both good (Project Runway, Amazing Race) and less so (American Idol, BIg Brother), but not the candids like Housewives or Jersey Shore—in fact, I've never seen those since I've basically lived without cable since high school and just haven't taken the time to check those out online the way I do with the Bravo/Lifetime shows. So not having seen those, I don't particularly judge those who do watch them. Actually, in recent months I've been working on some low-profile unscripteds in a minor post-production capacity, but somehow seeing the nuts and bolts of these not-entirely-spontaneous things doesn't put me off them.

With scripted shows, I'm all over the place. I'll put up with godawful writing in dramas as long as I still enjoy the cast or get something out of hate-watching a show, yet I get oddly snobby about post-Arrested Development sitcoms—I love Raising Hope and especially Community, but then if somebody flips it to a Chuck Lorre show, I think, "I don't miss the early '90s enough to watch this laugh-tracked tripe." So yeah, I'm not one for consistency.

[gardenvarietycitizen]

I mostly watch Japanese TV. Probably my favorite genre (from either country) is serious documentaries, meaning the take on the issue is sincere and it's not all staged reality TV. FWIW I only just found the show "Hoarders: Buried Alive" this afternoon and watched the first two episodes of it. I love "Frontline" and "Independent Lens" on PBS, also various Nova shows, nature TV.

I also do like some dramas, mostly (again because it's mostly Japanese TV for me) I prefer shows that have continuity over one season and are written completely before the filming starts (as most Japanese dramas are, both the good ones and the terrible ones). For US shows, that means I've liked Downton Abbey and also Weeds. I think I would like Mad Men, I need to get around to watching it on Netflix. I've liked "Homicide" before. I liked "Jericho."

Probably the main thing with me is HOW to watch TV, obviously in my case most of it is downloaded in some format, so I watch it rather like reading a book or watching a movie, I know I want to watch an episode (or three) so queue it up, no commercials and certainly not as background noise (for that there's talk radio!!) because it's about focusing on the screen. "Weeds" we have on DVD.

I can't deny though that I do also watch "variety" shows from Japanese TV which are probably the most lowbrow type of TV in existence, so I can't be claiming any sort of superior taste, trust me. And, I do enjoy "Saturday Night Live," that's the one show I do watch on the actual TV when it's on live, mainly it's an excuse to sit around drinking beer with the neighbors but we all quite enjoy it. I don't like most American "reality shows" because it seems they're all designed to just cause people to fight on camera and I get distressed watching that.

Loved "1900 House," watched it on DVD. It was a reality show, but halfway to a documentary really, the idea was to explore the period and how it differs from now, not to just to make the family fight.

[Deleted01]

I used to like House Hunters until it was revealed what a big, fat, fake the show is.

What? I was always suspicious but....can you elaborate please? That was one show I loved to watch when we had cable just because I love looking at houses.

[Paisy]

I watch very little broadcast TV (except for Modern Family!) but I'm an awful reality show junkie (Teen Mom, Dance Moms, a lot of those TLC shows, etc). The bulk of my TV watching is done with the Discovery Network and NatGeo and the like. Those are somewhat informative at least. Sadly any educational benefit is canceled out by faithful viewing of Tosh.0. :oops:

I would not say I am a TV snob, haha.

[sparkles]

What? I was always suspicious but....can you elaborate please? That was one show I loved to watch when we had cable just because I love looking at houses.

Definitely fake fake fake. A number of people who've appeared on HH have blogged about the process. Generally, the house or apartment has already been purchased or rented, the "realtors" often aren't (friends of the house hunter sometimes) and so on. A lot of times when they purchase a "furnished" home, it's the homeowners' furnishing. One ep I remember (Dubai?) the apartment had bare furnishings that the realtor claimed came with the apartment, but they neglected to remove the homeowners' clothing from the Ikea dressers, so everything was clearly visible through the translucent drawer fronts.

I don't know if I'd call myself a TV snob (Okay, maybe. Okay, yeah. Sort of...) but I don't really watch that much of it. I don't watch any network TV except for the morning news (CBS with Charlie Rose), and we only have basic cable so no HBO or anything like that. The only series I've watched lately is Battlestar Galactica and Big Bang Theory, both well after they've aired. Somehow, they just miraculously showed up on my computer courtesy of the Torrent Fairies. I do religiously watch Doctor Who and Top Gear right after they air in the UK--those darn Fairies again! Occasionally I'll catch some reality-based thing but nothing I stick with on a regular basis. And I never, ever sit down in front of the TV without doing something else like reading at the same time. TV just doesn't hold my interest. I've never seen 99% of the things that are popular (American Idol, Oprah and so on). Not that I get all judgey about what people watch; it's just not my thing.

To bolster my non-snob argument though, I keep HGTV or Food Network on as background when I work at home nights and weekends--bad, I know. There are a couple of shows I like so if I hear something interesting, I'll turn around and watch. But then again on the snob side, I love watching history and science documentaries. Two of the most interesting programs I've ever seen were about flood control in Venice and the construction and transport or an offshore oil rig. Go figure...