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Anagrams and Early Adopters
Oct. 15th, 2010 02:35 pmThis little exchange happened a few months back when a friend and I we're wandering through Future Shop over lunch:
Doctor Who and it's spin offs never did it for me, and that's a little odd. It was a show that should have appealed to me. I think I was turned off due to The Law of Fan Jackassery which was at its peak in Calgary exactly when I was introduced to it. People like JB and SG were big fans of Doctor Who and were also such awful wastes of skin, that I couldn't bring myself to watch the show. And the fact that they liked a particular show and were also total gits had nothing to do with each other. Still, it sours you.
Now, of course, Doctor Who is a lot more popular (and therefore farther right on the jackassery curve), but the damage was done. It's not that I think the people I know now, who are Doctor Who fans, are jerks (mostly they're not) - it's that there's so much back story I don't want to do the work to get into it. My window of opportunity has passed.
In general, if I'm to get into a show I need to see it from the beginning. It's why a show like Lost might appeal to me, but I'm probably never going to watch it. I didn't watch it back when it was new and now that it's finished (to general approval of the shows fans, revealing it wasn't a waste of time and effort on their part) I probably will just never get around to checking it out. The hype has died down. It would be like re-watching Twin Peaks (the Lost of its day).
There are exceptions. I've recently plowed through two seasons of Chuck and Castle and found both to be time well wasted.
Still, there is a certain amount of pride in being an early adopter of a show. I was a big booster for the movie Amélie and got a lot of people to watch it. Similarly, a show like Coupling was probably going to be exactly as popular in my extended circle of friends with or without my recommendations, but I like to think it became popular months early due to my efforts.
As pride goes, this is an after dinner mint worth of pride, whereas actually creating something like a TV show or a book is a death-by-chocolate level of pride. You didn't really have anything to do with the thing being created, but by god, you had the good sense to recognize its genius before everyone else!
For self-evidently good things, it's often a matter of good luck and timing rather then superior taste that allows one to be an early-adopter. It was a chance comment about actress Sarah Alexander's good looks in an internet forum that made me try out the show when I saw it for cheap at a store. It certainly wasn't my superior knowledge about British television. For proof, I didn't know that "Torchwood" is an anagram of "Doctor Who".
"Turns out I'm the last person on Earth who figured out that Torchwood was an anagram for Doctor Who"Two coworkers were in ear-shot.
"Since I didn't actually know that until just now, you're actually second-last."
"Third-last," says coworker 1.I'll probably get at least one comment to this post saying "fifth-last", etc.
"fourth-last," says coworker 2.
Doctor Who and it's spin offs never did it for me, and that's a little odd. It was a show that should have appealed to me. I think I was turned off due to The Law of Fan Jackassery which was at its peak in Calgary exactly when I was introduced to it. People like JB and SG were big fans of Doctor Who and were also such awful wastes of skin, that I couldn't bring myself to watch the show. And the fact that they liked a particular show and were also total gits had nothing to do with each other. Still, it sours you.
Now, of course, Doctor Who is a lot more popular (and therefore farther right on the jackassery curve), but the damage was done. It's not that I think the people I know now, who are Doctor Who fans, are jerks (mostly they're not) - it's that there's so much back story I don't want to do the work to get into it. My window of opportunity has passed.
In general, if I'm to get into a show I need to see it from the beginning. It's why a show like Lost might appeal to me, but I'm probably never going to watch it. I didn't watch it back when it was new and now that it's finished (to general approval of the shows fans, revealing it wasn't a waste of time and effort on their part) I probably will just never get around to checking it out. The hype has died down. It would be like re-watching Twin Peaks (the Lost of its day).
There are exceptions. I've recently plowed through two seasons of Chuck and Castle and found both to be time well wasted.
Still, there is a certain amount of pride in being an early adopter of a show. I was a big booster for the movie Amélie and got a lot of people to watch it. Similarly, a show like Coupling was probably going to be exactly as popular in my extended circle of friends with or without my recommendations, but I like to think it became popular months early due to my efforts.
As pride goes, this is an after dinner mint worth of pride, whereas actually creating something like a TV show or a book is a death-by-chocolate level of pride. You didn't really have anything to do with the thing being created, but by god, you had the good sense to recognize its genius before everyone else!
For self-evidently good things, it's often a matter of good luck and timing rather then superior taste that allows one to be an early-adopter. It was a chance comment about actress Sarah Alexander's good looks in an internet forum that made me try out the show when I saw it for cheap at a store. It certainly wasn't my superior knowledge about British television. For proof, I didn't know that "Torchwood" is an anagram of "Doctor Who".
