Raised by TV

I am currently trying to serve two masters by watching TV and writing this blog, it isn’t hard coz I’ve been doing this since I was born. When I grew up in a household where the TV was on almost throughout the day, when I was born it was a black and white TV and my mum never had to worry about me wandering away since I loved it. When I was older, they bought a VCR and a colour TV that spelled the end of any interaction with humans whenever it was on. After a while I developed one rile, learn from the TV and try to merge what the TV says with what mum says, if they kinda collide then I look for a middle ground. There is a reason why middle class Nairobian kinda sound alike and this is because we were raised mostly by televisions. Dad spends most of his time at work and you will only hear about 10 words from him a day ‘Son, take my brief case and  get me my slippers’ and the occasional ‘Hand me the remote’ or ‘go see who is at the door’. Mom on the other would either bend your ear with reasons why you should be like so and so’s child or if she is not at work, she will be gossiping with her friends in the living room. This may not apply to everyone and I cannot admit that it was like this in my family but I am sure a lot of Nairobians can relate.

That entire attention vacuum left a really deep hole in a curious child’s development, that deep gaping hole is what can actually create the different types of children that we have. The bully usually has a somewhat dysfunctional family and is caused pain whenever he is at home, coupled by low grades that end up getting him whipped ever so regularly he decides to cause pain to others. Different situations create different types of kids and eventually a different breed of adult so what is it so many of us Nairobians have in common, television.  I can personally say I spent hours upon hours staring into a television screen just absorbing every single thing I could. I could differentiate accents, could understand some somewhat culture specific jokes when I was a teenager and it ended up moulding my own accent to what it is now.

I am sure none can feel the words on this blog, because I do not know how to write with an accent, but I would very much like you to perform a social experiment. If you can find an adult who as a child used to watch about 5 hours of TV a day on holidays and at least 3 hours on weekdays.  Watched every movie he could get his hands on and used to read anything in his path then however many of them you find they will probably talk and think the same. This is off course not saying that those of us raised by the TV are perfectly happy, far from it. I can only say that we had an identity problem, we felt like we stood out. This is best felt by the child ending up in a school with a very large percentage of children being more outdoors like. This brings us to the disadvantage of being raised by TV, all those hours in front of it breeds very fat kids.  Very fat kids are laughed at because they cannot perform sports very well. Watching a kid, who probably has a very high I.Q and who could probably keep you abreast on current affairs, try run around a field is very saddening. A personal situation arose when I was just in primary school; I knew the winning house that I could join and never had to break a sweat to succeed coz they were already good. The downside about my ingenious plan was that the teachers knew that too, so the plan was thwarted by a rule that stated that we were all to be chosen into our respective houses at random. At that point, I was so screwed coz I ended up having to join a bunch of races that I didn’t win and undergo a tonne of laughs that I didn’t like.

 Weight isn’t the only problem that is brought up by TV, social awkwardness comes in. After hours of watching different people in different situations you would think it’s easy to interact with people but in reality it’s a nightmare.

A young man approaches a girl but knows true well that the lines he saw on a certain movie won’t work with her and since they were scripted, he is unsure how she would react to his conversation. This puts him in a major conundrum, one that could cripple the boy if he does not snap out of it. In comes boarding school, the place where TV is rationed, social interaction is more frequent and the need to survive more urgent. At this point in the young person’s life, they are going through basic withdrawal symptoms that come with TV deprivation. One of the withdrawal symptoms is switching to music that should keep the urges at bay for the week until weekend entertainment period. Holiday times are spent trying to soak in as much TV as they can in the first year but eventually they get weaned off of it. By the time high school is over, the truly successful ones have overcome awkwardness. Their first kiss is already gone, probably with their virginity too and they may have even gotten a person to go steady with.  It’s difficult to say where these individuals end up but from the many that I have met in my lifetime, they end up succeeding.  The TV gave them a personality that fluidly moves through the masses and with this, a lot of people find them easier to talk to.