To be fair to the reader, I will preface this by saying that my memory ain’t what it used to be. I’m getting older, for one thing, and having a 2-year-old sorta sucks what little brainpower you have left outta your body and focuses it solely on them.
Also, I’m certain I have long COVID because even though I was vaccinated, I’ve used about 300 truck stop bathrooms since. And as marvelous as modern medicine may be, there are some things even a benevolent God would eventually turn his back on, and many can be found in those doorless stalls.
That said, I can remember a time when if you didn’t like something on TV, you’d simply stop watching it. Does that make sense to anyone? Am I the only person who recalls that? Does that sound too radical and Zen to some of you?
Well, if my memory serves, it’s true.
Sure, if you had previously enjoyed the show you might give it a couple episodes of grace, but other than that you’d just pick up the clicker (what those of us in the 1900s called the remote control) and put the boob tube (that’s … actually I don’t know why we called the TV that) on something different.
A crazy notion, right? Although I guess sometimes it actually was a crazy notion considering some of us only had three channels (that’s right, Gen Z, you have merely adapted to the darkness. We were born in it. Molded by it.)
So I guess what I’m getting at is this: If we could just change the channel when we had so few, why are we having a hard time doing it now when our possibilities are limitless? I promise you that no matter your niche interest, you can hop on your Google Machine and find a whole list of suitable programs that will scratch that itch.
There’s truly something out there for everyone, and I say that with equal parts joy and disgust. But if I come across something that disgusts me, I just, well … I point the doohickey at the thingamajig and watch something I don’t find abhorrent.
Freedom, baby.
Credit: Handout
Credit: Handout
There are some people out there who I have seen religiously hate on everything “Star Wars” has put out in the last 15 years. This includes a bunch of movies, cartoons, live-action shows, books, etc.
I always think to myself, “Well, how do you know if you hate something if you don’t watch it?” And apparently the answer is “with the confidence of a Kennedy, my boy.”
But that is only one type of hater, and not the one I’m focusing on today. Because, as it turns out, many of these, shall we say, Darth haters (I’m so sorry) actually HAVE watched all these things that they seem to hate. I’ll ask them why, and they’ll say, “`Cause I’m a huge “Star Wars” fan.”
I hate to break it to ya, pal … but I don’t think ya are. I think being a fan of an almost-50-year-old franchise means that you would have probably needed to like something it put out within the last 20 years.
But what do I know? I’m just someone who used to listen to Joe Rogan every day, but then stopped cold turkey when I ceased liking it and I don’t think the world owes me something for it.
This isn’t me trying to go to bat for “Star Wars” on some nerd crusade. There are several other franchises I could have used.
Heck, I could have used people. Comedians get this treatment all the time.
A lot of the time, some of your biggest haters used to be your most die-hard (another franchise that fell off, yet I’ve lost no sleep over) fans. I’m not telling you that you have to agree with their creative decisions, or that you can’t discuss those intelligently with other fans or even on the internet.
Of course you can. Entertainment would be dead if people didn’t discuss it.
What I am telling you, though, is that we all have a finite amount of time on this Earth. And that goes for your loved ones as well.
You could be healthy as an ox (a phrase that actually predates the 1900s; look at my memory go) and get hit by a truck on your way to work. You could be in shape, training for a marathon, and all the sudden throw a blood clot that you don’t know about.
Every time you talk to someone, there is a chance it might be your last.
So, finally, to my point: If you spend your precious time watching something you hate because you think Hollywood or an actor or a director owes you something — when you could be spending that time doing something you love — you are a loser of the highest order and I pray you wake up to that before it’s too late.
Also, hell, there are kids starving in Africa and dying in Gaza — get over yourself, dummy.
Corey Ryan Forrester is a comedian from Chickamauga. He is the co-author of “The Liberal Redneck Manifesto: Draggin’ Dixie Outta the Dark” and “Round Here and Over Yonder: A Front Porch Travel Guide by Two Progressive Hillbillies (Yes, That’s a Thing.),” and a co-host of the podcasts “wellRED” and “Puttin’ On Airs.”
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