Writing to Justify the Countless Hours I Spend in Front of the TV Set

I am pretty sure that the world doesn’t need another blog and I know that there are countless other ones that will have more insightful stuff to say about television than I will… but I’m on a mission.  A mission to, yes, as the title to this opening entry jokes, justify my television consumption, but also a mission to write again.  After a year and a half of writer’s block (which I blame largely on having two children within a 17 month period), I thought forcing myself to write regularly might be a good thing. 

Of course it’s a bit hypocritical of me to start a blog when I read so few myself.  Most of the ones I frequent are written by my co-workers and students (although I do have a soft spot for one comedic mommy blog that helps me laugh my way through raising a just-turned-toddler:  The Honest Toddler).  The majority of my experience with blogs has actually come from my work as an academic – a popular culture scholar hiding out in an English Department in the middle of central Illinois).  More and more these days when I am seeking out research on contemporary television the most interesting (and up to date) pieces I find are not published in scholarly journals or obscure collections housed only on the shelves of university libraries, rather they exist online in personal websites and public blogs.  Thankfully such sources are now (usually) accepted in academe and I can draw upon this smart commentary stemming from a range of individuals – most of whom are not scholars in the traditional sense but are just really intelligent consumer of mass media and/or enthusiastic fans.   This is the audience I want to write to.    (Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate writing for peer reviewed presses also but I’ve grown disheartened by the slow speed of print publishing.  I have a journal article on ABC’s Lost coming out in The Journal of Popular Culture in 2014… a full four years after the series went off the air.  How relevant will my work be when it finally hits those pages?  Not very).

The title of this blog not only reveals its focus, television (and an embarrassing appreciation for alliteration), but it also alludes to my own self perception as a scholar.  Sometimes I feel rather “small screen” in a world of bigger and better and flashier “big screen” thinkers.  I suppose I suffer from the “fake professor” syndrome that I heard many Ph.D. holders do.  I often do not feel as smart as those little letters might imply I should feel.  When surrounded by fellow English professors I never feel that I know enough, that I have read as much, and I am certain that at times my vocabulary and grammar give me away as a “poser” of sorts.  (Case in point:  I had to look up the word “ennui” just this past week even though I once knew its definition; at a conference last year I mispronounced both “ephemeral” and “zeitgeist” in my own talk; and I am pretty sure that I make up words on a daily basis.  The latter was less of a problem when I taught high school and could jokingly tell my students that since Shakespeare got away with it I could too.  This joke doesn’t go over as well up in the good ole ivory tower).  But despite feeling this way from time to time, I know that I do occasionally have some “smart” things to say about television and popular culture and so I start this blog in the hopes that I will capture a few of those fleeting moments… because it would be a shame if they only lingered between me, my couch, and my faithful DVR remote.

With that said, I write this mostly for myself.  If anyone is reading, that’s a plus.  And if anyone is reading, I apologize in advance for subjecting you to my meandering thoughts on an eclectic set of television programs.