Throw Away Your Television

Television sets of the western world are quaking in their proverbial boots. And who can blame them? The poor things are close to extinction!

It may not be as plain as the nose on your face, but somewhere down the line, the television found a growth in its plastic casing, and soon discerned it was terminal. Before you go denouncing me for evoking such a tasteless piece of imagery in your mind that will soon fester there and stay for many an hour, think about the importance of your TV. How much joy has it brought you down the years?

For some people, TV has racked up enough brownie points for it to be regarded as an additional family member. And I’m not exaggerating. The television, in most households from the 1960s to the 1990s, could easily place right behind a family pet in the pecking order for love and attention. The irregular person then chose to rank their TV above any animals in their possession – though not going as far to hug it day and night, and feed it doggie treats.

But the television won’t receive the mercy of a quick exit from our lives. The death of the old "square box” will be a slow, painful one indeed. Why? Digital and HD TV have proven to be temporary cures that will drag out the process longer than it seems necessary. Nearly everything we can do on a television, we can do on a computer.

The upturn in fortunes of the computer over this present decade has trumped all efforts the television can gather together, effectively emasculating it. For the laymen, if PCs and TVs were members of your family, then the PC is the young-at-heart parental figure, who all your friends enjoy the company of, and are fascinated by the vitality of – whereas the TV is the decrepit grandfather, who stews bitterly in the corner of the room, watching all the attention his child obtains, and silently resents it. But it isn’t as if your grandfather TV lacks appeal entirely. If you trotted over, and conversed with him for a little while, you’d be reminded that his crazy stories are still fairly interesting; less so than before, as you’ve heard them all already. The problem arises when, after a while, that TV will not shut its yap, and you end up leaving to return to daddy PC, who has had something quite “edgy” or controversial happen to them in the time you spent listening to the TV. Simply put, the computer has so much more to offer than the television. As time goes by, the television will grow so irksome that we need to ship it off to the hospice for terminally ill household entertainment appliances (also known as the garage); the same one that accommodated the likes of the now long deceased gramophone and walkman; the vinyl player, which is on its last legs; the hi-fi, whose appearances almost equate to cameos now and then, as it perseveres as the centrefold at parties; and the radio, which feels rejuvenated every so often, but – no matter how hard it fights – will never be restored to its former glory.

The death of television might be especially sad for people of my age group. Many, many adolescents have grown up considering it their primary source of entertainment outside of outdoor activities with fellow young people. We were too young to be thankful for …in fact, we were too young to understand the impact radio had on generations before us, and it has only been in recent years that our craving for the Internet has begun to engulf us.

Remember the slogan, enforced to dissuade people from carrying out animal neglect: “A dog is for life, not just for Christmas”? The shameful thing is we can’t apply it to our good friend, the television. When the day arrives, on which he finally becomes obsolete, we will remember the good times, and may shed a tear or two for our fallen comrade. Then we’ll abandon him in a scrapyard somewhere, and be on our merry way.