So yes. Call it an addiction. Call it escapism. Call it the opium of the people.
They call it the "idiot box," the "glass teat," a passive drain on the soul. But I don’t care. I love TV.
I love the democracy of it. On the same night, a billionaire in a penthouse and a night-shift nurse in a studio apartment can laugh at the same late-night monologue. A teenager in Seoul and a retiree in Kansas can hold their breath during the same F1 race finale. The screen is a great equalizer. It does not care about your rent or your résumé. It cares only that you are watching . love tv
I always am.
In Love with the Light of the Box
Not the nostalgic, grainy rabbit-ears version your grandparents talk about, where three channels signed off at midnight with the national anthem. No. I love the now of TV. The glut. The golden age that refuses to end. I love the way a glowing rectangle in the corner of a room can become a universe.
I love TV because it has never betrayed me. People leave. Plans fall apart. The world outside is chaotic, unfair, and loud. But the TV? It arrives precisely on time. It promises a beginning, a middle, and an end. It delivers catharsis in tidy forty-two-minute packages. It is the most reliable relationship I have ever known. So yes
I love the news crawl at the bottom of the screen during a hurricane. I love the weather girl pointing at a green screen, her hands tracing the path of a storm that hasn't arrived yet. I love the infomercial at 3 a.m., selling a non-stick pan with the desperation of a broken poet. I love the static between channels—that snow of a lost signal—because for one second, it reminds me of the void that the TV is always, kindly, filling.