The VCR was the Beginning of the End
Some will say that the creation of the internet was the beginning of the end for our society. Some will point back to cable, specifically the proliferation of 24-hour news channels. I think it was the VCR.
My father loved gadgets. While my memory of it is very sketchy, my older siblings (and uncles) remember very well when Dad purchased the first home video game — Pong by Atari. It was created the year I was born! And, it was simply a digital version of Ping Pong, or table tennis. My dad probably worked some extra shifts as a butcher at the Kroger in order to pay for it.
What I remember more clearly is the VCR. There should be some dramatic music playing whenever you read that word VCR. Try to imagine it. I am. This was an incredible experience.
V C R !
If we had to be at church on Wednesday night, and we had to be at church on Wednesday night, no longer would we have to miss WKRP in Cincinnati or The Greatest American Hero. We could set the VCR to record it. And, if on Friday night, the family preferred to watch The Incredible Hulk, I could record Bosom Buddies and watch it later. (Yes, I know it is problematic. I was 10, in love with Tom Hanks, and it was funny.)
We didn’t notice it happening, but because of this convenience we all slowly drifted into watching TV shows at different times. Of course, it didn’t become really evident until streaming services became the go-to instead of cable, but the VCR was the beginning of the end.
Something happens when millions of people gather in front of their television sets to watch the exact same thing at the exact same time. I thought about this recently when the hubby and I watched The Friends Reunion on HBO Max. They said that during the finale of that series in 2004 there were 15 million people watching it. (Yes, I know Friends is also problematic. What isn’t?)
15 million people. 15 million people gathered together for a specified time to turn their collective attention to the same thing.
You should know by now. It is in my bio after all. I am an avid television watcher. I like most everything. Not reality TV so much because it feels the least real of all to me and not crime shows (which are a form of reality that doesn’t feel real), but most everything else. I watch good TV. I watch bad TV. Sometimes I have the TV on, but I’m playing Candy Crush instead, but I watch TV. I’m a child of the 80’s . . .
Am I a child of the 80's? I grew up in the 80’s, but was born in the 70’s. How are we supposed to use that phrase? I don’t know. But, I know that most every formative moment of my life happened in the 80’s, so I’ll stick with “I’m a child of the 80's.”
So, TV was central to my growing up. And, when we went to school each day, chances are that everyone at the lunch table had watched the same television shows the night before. We had that in common. We had shared experience. We had shared language. We shared.
The VCR was the beginning of the end of that. Because of the VCR, “appointment television” began to change into “on my own schedule television.” Don’t get me wrong. I love it. I’m grateful to every streaming service I pay a monthly fee for (hubby not so much), but I do think we are suffering because of it.
We recently had what many call AN INSURRECTION at the CAPITOL of the UNITED STATES and while we all have a collective idea of what that was and what that means, there were never 15 million people watching the exact same images at the exact same time. That does something. That fractures something. I was watching CNN. My mom was watching FOX. My brother was likely watching OAN. My sister MSNBC. The hubby won’t watch it at all. So, we all came away that day with knowledge but not a collective experience that would bind us together in any real way.
When I think about sitting in my eighth-grade science class watching the Network television broadcast as The Space Shuttle Challenger exploded in 1986, I know that there are millions of people who have similar experiences. I watched the big burly man of a teacher burst into tears as he simply sat with us in shock. That is a tragic example, but the shared experience connects us in some mysterious way.
It was before my time, but I also think about the Moon Landing. Everyone glued to their televisions at the same time — all over the world — watching, waiting, holding their breath together, exhaling together. It wasn’t some unicorns and lollipop world where there weren’t severe divisions, but that was a shared experience in which everyone celebrated. Poor NASA can’t even get time on network television these days and folks like me just wait to watch the replay that pops up on my Facebook feed. We have lost something.
I’m just raising questions. I wish I had some answers. It isn’t that I think if we would all sit down and watch the same TV at the same time of day all of our division would disappear. But, I don’t think it would hurt. Shared experience is important. It is why we went to church on Wednesday nights. It is why I still go to church on Sunday mornings. We gather together at specific times in specific places so that we can carry that into every time and every place. And, I just happen to be someone who believes that art heals — even stupid art like The Bosom Buddies.
