Death of the TV gatherings - Cái chết của tụ tập xem vô tuyến

As a kid, every Sunday my whole family would gather together to watch the television.

Everything that was on we would watch from morning until lunchtime comes, while the TV was still on. Dad would then read the newspaper for about thirty minutes waiting for his food to digest, then we would turn our eyes onto the television again to see what else would be next.

No planning, nothing: we were in awe of every single thing, from the crappy drama shows to the brilliant comedy skits on VTV, to Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. We watched so much stuff, the we felt like we knew the actors on a personal level.

Then almost always, at some point, someone would reach for the remote control trying to change the channel, and the rest would be voting for or against it. Like a game of democracy.

There was a sense of connection between each family member. Glued to the screen, bonding at its finest, without a single distraction by the latest reels about some celebrities that are irrelevant in our lives that are forgotten after about 10 seconds.

It was magical, the way how sacred movie-going used to be. The way my sister and I would look at each other after a character in the movie saying something age inappropriate. The way dad used to stare and the ladies on the screen and mom would point it out and scold at him for doing so making me burst out in laughter.

Call me old-fashioned (by this point, I’m already used to criticism), but I really do miss those times. If you will, a time of innocence, that has been lost when the smartphone came along, and of course, Netflix. The death of TV gatherings saddens me, that we’ll never get those times back, and that with advancement comes the the decay of a ritual that was once essential to our daily lives, now just an echo and vague memories of how things used to be.

Sure, Netflix (or insert any streaming service that comes to your mind here) is extremely convenient. Yet, it’s rather, dare I say, too convenient for our own sake. We can choose whatever we want to watch, whenever we want at little to no cost. But the real cost is its sacredness.

The magic is in the not knowing what to expect. The magic of getting a new television, also, was much more grandeur. Who buys a TV anymore these days? Back then, having two or three TV’s in a household was a flex. It was a sign of prosperity at that time.

But I guess the real flex nowadays should be that magical feeling being honed. Whether it’s through a television, or a movie screening — we watch movies and tv shows not just because their content: we go to the movies and we watch the TV’s because it reminds us that we’re on the same boat, that at the end of the day we are a family that cares about each other, sharing the same love for an incredibly great medium of expression.

And for each other.

And I will fight until the day I die for this spirit that is decaying day by day to live on.