I am a product of several formative TV sitcoms and am subsequently a victim of low self-esteem. I'm not alone in hoping my grown-up life would be a hybrid of witticisms, caustic detachment and the kind of eloquent self-introspection that not only generates successful romances, but also elicits hero-worship from my girl friends. Thanks to the new and improved TBS, I can and do revisit my old universal "happy places."
I'm glad that TBS got a hipster makeover. Sex and the City, that saucy minx, and the rest of its addictive mainstream sitcoms, have re-defined TBS and made syndication cool again. Now it's "very funny." It hosts some of man's greatest creations (Friends, Seinfeld, Family Guy and the ambitious and incomparable Dawson's Creek), the very shows that painted this chic, fabulous picture of all my life could have been. It has sassy montage commercials to advertise its epic programming. It has become a life-force, Carrie et. al. its shining beacon.
Damn you TBS; let me move on from sexy NYC and live my life in its un-glam normalcy.
I'm surely not the only one who wishes I could rid my life of the sickness that is syndicated television. There are 2.9 million Sex and the City websites out there, and the one spawned by the beast itself might be one of the most depressing. Thousands vote every day to speculate on whom Carrie should have ended up with. In the City Diary, Carrie Bradshaw wannabes pose such pervasive romantic queries as "Are men just women with balls?" and "Are we simply romantically challenged or are we sluts?"
Mock them I may, but I too am guilty of shameless attempts at pigeon-holing my life with Carrie-style abstract inquiries. Notably, Sex and the City has created a generation of acceptable sluttiness, but more importantly, it has inspired a mass of girls to self-examine in an ineffective, largely pretentious way. I am no Sex fanatic, I sit and watch with objective, detached enjoyment, so it took the wily, repetitive programming of TBS to make me realize how it has infected my brain. I, too, sit at my Mac and generalize, "When it comes to relationships ..." or, "I couldn't help but wonder ..." I am embarrassed to admit that I have justified romantic failures through the celebration of my quasi-intellectual rants, but I'll probably keep doing it.
Yes, TBS has managed to exploit the greatest weakness of people out there like me, those who would rather sit around and half-assedly emulate the Carries, Joey Potters and Kramers of the world than try to have our own fabulous lives. TBS loves its shows, and it loves the power that these outdated reruns hold over its unexcited, uninspired, yet completely addicted audience.
TBS, you sure are "very funny." So funny that I live in my life, like the rest of us who indulge frequently and alone, in completely unsatisfying nostalgia. How do you sleep at night, morally degenerate TBS? I remember when you were the SuperStation, you are such a poseur.
