Playa Haters' Ball

[ZackM]

I have an irrational hatred of "standing desks." It's partially because I've been looking for a desk on Facebook Marketplace, and over half the listings are for standing desks. Maybe it's because people buy them thinking it's a good idea and quickly realizing standing up sucks?

I assume that the people who buy them are the same people who buy into all the latest health crazes. There should be some way to filter out these results when I'm searching for desks.

Standing desks are great for people like me that are back and forth from their desk all day. That said, I hate standing desks and don’t have one. I’d rather deal with the inconvenience of repeatedly sitting and standing.

 

[physicsfactor]

I like my standing desk.

 

[sivartrenrag]

I much prefer standing when I'm on calls. I got one of those varidesk things for cheap at the start of the pandemic and it's great.

 

[rome8180]

Reality TV.

I'm listening to a couple podcasts where reality TV keeps getting brought up. That's not the subject matter of the podcasts, so I'm annoyed that they keep talking about it. I find the interest in it mindboggling. So much of it's fake. So basically, instead of watching a scripted show where the point is to have interesting characters in interesting situations, you're watching a scripted show with the shittiest humans alive in boring situations.

Travel shows and the like don't fall in this category. I'm talking about The Bachelor in Paradise or whatever.

The people on these podcasts who are talking about reality TV are otherwise intelligent humans with good tastes.

 

[deepdarkblue]

Reality TV is junk food - cheap to make with ridiculously high-profit margins. Its food equivalent would be something like cotton candy.

 

[rome8180]

I'm not above junk food. I'll watch Face/Off or Mr. and Mrs. Smith or Crank 2. I watched The Killing and Reacher.

But those don't leave me hating all of humanity. And the escapist elements are actually entertaining. I'm not watching entitled asshole complain about their nonexistent problems. Reality TV shows are like junk food that doesn't even taste good.

 

[rome8180]

I would say "live and let live" and just ignore it, but it seems to keep finding a way to worm its way into my life. I've also dated a couple people who watched it in the last few years. I dated a super-progressive punk rock social worker who watched The Real Housewives, for example.

 

[bfactor]

An ex of mine has a PhD in biomedical engineering from Duke and Dance Moms was appointment television. She’s doing her postdoc at Harvard now. I still don’t get it.

 

[rhfarmer]

My wife watches them all. She says that it makes her happier to know that she's sane and normal.

 

[sivartrenrag]

I hate basically all reality TV but there is something about Love is Blind that hooks me. I just can't get enough of all those stupid clout-hungry freak shows.

 

[deeyoukayeee]

My wife made me watch that once. It made me feel sad about humanity.

Hate all that stuff. Except season one of Jersey Shore. That was the best.

 

[physicsfactor]

My wife watches them all. She says that it makes her happier to know that she's sane and normal.

I think this is basically it for most people whether or not they want to admit.

What’s funny is I know people who like watching terrible people in “reality” TV but hate fictional TV like “Seinfeld” or “It’s Always Sunny” because “the characters are all so selfish and terrible.” I’m the opposite.

 

[Bullettoothtony]

Agree with most sentiments about reality TV.

However, my niece did get me to watch "Cheer" on Netflix, it's about two junior colleges in Texas that have incredible cheer programs (one in particular has won a dozen or more national championships). It was more interesting than i thought. Some really good athletes in both programs.

Apparently the show was really "trending" or whatever at one point, and garnered some level of fame for several of the cheerleaders.

 

[aiw]

Including the pedophile

 

[Hammy-O]

Agree with most sentiments about reality TV.

However, my niece did get me to watch "Cheer" on Netflix, it's about two junior colleges in Texas that have incredible cheer programs (one in particular has won a dozen or more national championships). It was more interesting than i thought. Some really good athletes in both programs.

Apparently the show was really "trending" or whatever at one point, and garnered some level of fame for several of the cheerleaders.

You might like Last Chance U if you haven’t seen it.

 

[Bullettoothtony]

Agree with most sentiments about reality TV.

However, my niece did get me to watch "Cheer" on Netflix, it's about two junior colleges in Texas that have incredible cheer programs (one in particular has won a dozen or more national championships). It was more interesting than i thought. Some really good athletes in both programs.

Apparently the show was really "trending" or whatever at one point, and garnered some level of fame for several of the cheerleaders.

You might like Last Chance U if you haven’t seen it.

I'll check it out. Thank you for the tip.

 

[Bullettoothtony]

Including the pedophile

Damn, I didn't know about that... I didn't watch the whole thing, so I looked it up per your comment.

Yikes...

 

[Pantone287]

The "I watch it because they're just so awful" reasoning is always so foreign to me. You can apply that logic to many things, but you don't see folks spending hours every week reading Parler, Yahoo News comments, etc. for funsies.

The other one I always hear is "I just want to turn my brain off and watch something where I don't have to think". i get that in principle, but there are plenty of better light shows for doing that. Trash reality TV actually stresses me out more than that type of light TV, bc I can't help doing some level of empathizing when it's real people, and imagining myself in whatever the situation is, because I'm not a psychopath.

 

[deepdarkblue]

The other one I always hear is "I just want to turn my brain off and watch something where I don't have to think". i get that in principle, but there are plenty of better light shows for doing that.

Yeah, I can devote 10 minutes to a stupid YouTube video but I can't sit through half an hour of some cringy people doing cringy shit that I have no interest.
Plus, I know way too many people in film production who have shared with me over the years how scripted and staged "reality" TV shows generally are.

 

[DrKlahn]

Does Air Disasters count as reality TV? Whenever I need an escape, that’s where I go.