Post Titled: Out of the airlock.
I started watching the 2nd season of Heroes, a show about people discovering that they have supernatural powers and
some sort of company out to get them. I didn't bother to watch the first season. With the exception of the constant "Why is Spock being so EVIL?" and "Awh... teenage mutant love" the show is just so-so, cardboard American
sitcom-level dialogue which tries its damndest to be meaningful. But, like that southern vampire show with that girl from the Piano,
it is something to have on in the background when you are drawing.
Back in January (at that point never having seen the show and not really knowing anything about it other than my description above- apparently that is all you need to know anyhow) I saw a girl (perhaps 11 or 12 years old) at LAX in a big black Heroes hooded sweatshirt. I stared at the logo on the front and then smiled at her . I don't even know why I did it but she actually smiled back. I guess I somehow related to it as if in the early 90s I was
walking around an airport in a SeaQuest DSV hoodie - had they existed.
Maybe Heroes is cool if you are in 5th grade, or maybe she was fearlessly outing herself as a nerd.... OR maybe one of her parents had
something to do with the studio or production of the show so they just have tons of hats and shirts with movie logos on them just laying
around the house and she grabbed the nearest one...
Since then I have shamelessly sewn a patch featuring the emblem of the Rebel Alliance which I bought last summer at Midtown Comics in Manhattan,
one of my favorite places on earth (the comic book store, not Manhattan itself) onto a bag which I use almost daily thus outing myself as a sort of dork... although I susperct that maybe only other dorks would pick up on it OR dudes over 30 or children in elementary school. In that way maybe it is like a secret language. I'd imagine that if I went around wearing a Star Trek pin (which i would never do) that it would be much more recognizable, but the Rebel Alliance patch... I'd wager that an average person on the street would have trouble identifying it out of context.

Who knows, maybe that girl in the Heroes sweatshirt actually has superpowers and I gave off the impression that I secretly knew that and secretly have superpowers myself
therefore I smiled at a complete stranger who smiled back- (how often does that happen? Once a year?) Having never seen the show myself
I didn't know... well, it is fine. It is better than all that:
On Hypermoronic Trash
I have recently re-encountered the world of children's televison programming (I.e. Disney XD and to some extent Nickelodeon)
only to be horrified at how astonishingly dumb the shows are. The humour even seems to be a step down from That 70s show, which I have only seen once
or twice but was nevertheless also amazed at how purely DUMB it was.
I'm not entirely sure what I was watching recently but... it was obnoxious crap.
Also, the style of the cartoons is particularly annoying- it is as if half the shows took Dexter's Labratory
as their visual role model: these THick black lines outlining everything and less and less effort going into any scenic details.
All that Schizo hyper-aware dialogue.
For example: a line of dialogue spoken very quickly in the show Kim Possible went something like "Hey princess we're the good guys and we're here to
save you BLAH BLAH BLAH." The show points out that it isn't doing anythign original and makes it tongue in cheek by defining it literally as "BLAH BLAH BLAH".
Spongebob and its very Wren and Stimpiness is so strange that it seems like and exception to the rule. It is somehow quite clever...
also what I did find somewhat tolerable and even charming at moments was iCarly, but even that gets really close
to the line. What is up with adolescents and teenagers AND the adults on these shows acting completely idiotic in these shows... watching my elementary-age cousins watch these
shows was interesting as well. There is one particulary bad one about twins on a boat, (further research turned up the title
"The Suite Life Of Zack And Cody"), - all the while my cousins hardly
react at all to the show as they watch it. The laugh track laughs but the kids sitting on the couch don't even crack so much as a smile episode after episode. So... if it isn't funny or entertaining... why do they watch?
These programs aren't even wince-worthy. Just came across a blog post denouncing them in further detail. thanks screwattack.com and poster called Timmy_the_Juggling_Man. Thank you, TImmy. Never seen Hannah Montana but that is at the top of the list.
I can't help but wonder if me writing such a post as this is just like your grandpa shouting "turn down that blasted rock n' roll music!" or your parents hating hip-hop. forever.
but it isn't really. because there is quality to rock and roll and rap music, there is thought put into it... I would almost prefer that Disney channel play Tim and Eric or Tim and Eric-esque material, horricially absurd nonsense rather than dumb bratty creepy crap. Tim and ERic is at least entertaining, which is also a cardinal sin of these shows: a mega-company like Disney pumps millions of dollars, man hours, energy, brain-power, resources, etc. into this stuff that isn't even worth making or watching and ultimately it fails to entertain...
My mother had a very effective method for dealing with bad waste-of-time television: she would come over, turn off the television saying "This is trash. Go play outside." In light of these truly shite Disney sitcoms I'd say that her type of totalitarian media filter methodology is not only needed but once again perhaps entirely necessary.