Do we form relationships with the shows we watch? I know for certain we form fandoms, which seem like a kind of one-sided relationship by which you heap adoration onto a certain program. They can provide a certain emotional release or elicit an emotional response, but does that really constitute the return of affection? I am, of course, a massive Community fan. I gain absurd amounts of satisfaction through following the lives of all my favourite characters. I thrive on watching Abed and co. come to terms with certain trials and overcome them, having changed through the ordeal. I love learning the intricacies and special details of the multitude of characters and gain the feeling like I’m growing closer to them in the process. I’m well aware these people are no more than the evocation of words on a page, but the more I experience their lives through the conduit of actors, the more realised they become. The more time I spend with them, the more I feel a kind of kinship or relationship between us growing. Yet again, they’re artificial and it’s more like I’m growing closer to the writers who create the characters and situations that I’m viewing. Thus my weird idolatry of Dan Harmon, the matron behind my beloved series. He’s probably the Venn diagram between the relationships I’ve built with my television shows and the similar one way relationship I’ve formed around the various podcasters that I follow (which I’ve spoken of previously during this project). Still, it’s not something I’d really term as a true two-way relationship. Is the internet changing this though? Many writers are accessible through social media, the twitterscape/verse/plane (as in planar, not aeronautical)/whatever new trendy term newscasters are expelling these days. I know that Dan Harmon regularly engages with the fandom on Reddit (though I’ve always been far too intimidated to engage). In this way can we start to engage in fostering a larger relationship with the text? Or are we still one step removed by conversing with the people who create the shows that we relate to?
I guess it’s also worth looking at how we respond to these textual constructs. I know that I watch shows on a “use” basis. They fulfill particular needs and allow me to vicariously experience certain events that I’d never have the chance to partake in otherwise. This hopefully isn’t the way that one would value their relationships with other people. If I based my relationships with other humans on what they could provide for me I’d be some kind of monster (like the eponymous documentary indicated much of Metallica might behave). Then again in even bringing up the idea, do we at all form relationships in this way? I’m not saying it’s necessarily a deliberate and malicious action, but subconsciously do we surround ourselves with people who make us feel a particular way? In some ways this might be by making us feel better about ourselves, providing reassurance or affirmation, stoking our egos like a well tended fire. In other ways we might have people in our lives because we appreciate their views and ways of seeing the world. By having them around we allow ourselves to be open to new and exciting ways of experiencing certain situations. This could even be shown through interest in hearing the stories they tell, the way they conceive of the influences of society and how they’re impacted, the way they re-frame their position in a way we can identify with and cherish. How different are these things to the way we savour the television we watch? We find characters to identify with, value how they respond to situations and stimuli and enjoy how they confront incidents that come their way.
I still know intrinsically that a bond formed with a television show is not the same as one formed with another living being. That being said I have at times been more affected by the twists and turns of a favourite text than the happenstances of people in my life. I’ve heard people tell me of crappy things that’ve happened and my response has been along the lines of “wow, that sucks” without the event giving me a huge amount of emotional impact. I don’t think I was being disingenuous in my reply, I could identify that something shitty had occurred, but it didn’t hit me as hard as it’d hit them. Concurrently I’ve been laid low by fictitious emotionally raw scenes that’ve made me reexamine my own past experiences and examine how I’d respond in the shoes of the characters. Am I the only one? Is this another chalk mark on the side of me being a shitty person, incapable of honestly relating to those around me?
I hope this isn’t the entry where I have the epiphany that I’m a sociopath.
I have my doubts 