The Irresponsible Purchase That Altered My Relationship to Media Forever
And the Black Friday deal that changed my life for the better
Rare are the times when real-world value emerges from the consumerism-driven spectacle that is “Black Friday.” On the heels of the gratitude that colors the Thanksgiving holiday, the American people make an oblivious turn toward 20% off Christmas deals and trample whoever stands in the way of their brand-new air fryer or Swiffer WetJet. They’ll trounce whatever eager kid has been waiting in digital line to buy an unscalped PlayStation 5 since the turn of the pandemic.
The bargain-driven holiday is a rife subject for satire and stands as one of the most revealing oddities of American culture. Between the holiday of giving and the day devoted to thanks, the yearly event can be succinctly summed up as “gluttonous.”
It wasn’t a holiday I’d partaken in much in the past. So when a 65-inch, 4K TV found its way into my digital cart on that fateful, consumerist night, I struggled to keep a feeling of guilt at bay. Eyeing up the 1,000+ dollar price tag with the trepidation of a college dropout at least a decade and a half shy of affording his first home, the earth stood still. And with a weighty gulp and one portentous click, a blow of unprecedented proportions was waged against my meager debit card balance. The PayPal notice of my indiscretion caused a hot feeling of shame to well within my innards.
Living at home with my parents, I procrastinated on telling them about the used car-priced contraption rapidly making its way through the mail network and toward our humble abode. But by the time it arrived, there was simply no concealing the monstrous heap of screws and electronica sitting on our doorstep. It was plopped there by two burly deliverymen, and the colossal case of cardboard wasn’t exactly something I could carry up the stairs with one hand.
By the time my parents finished berating me for my unfettered profligacy, my dad agreed to help me carry the monumental contraption up the stairs and mount it in my room in the only conceivable spot that space would allow. With the larger-in-life-than-I-could-possibly-have-imagined pristine black screen staring me in the face, an irrepressible “What have I done?” began to dawn.
But as I turned on the TV for the first time and watched Planet Earth, it was hard not to appreciate the fruits of my reckless extravagance. Whether playing sitcoms or defaulted to the most mundane and unmoving screensavers, the magnetism that the high-definition marvel exerted over each viewer who entered the room was undeniable. The first time I played a video game on it, I saw just how much more engrossing interactive experiences can become.
Realizing that my capricious whim to buy a TV may have been the greatest decision I ever made, a few months later a series of surround sounds followed suit. I installed a soundbar and subwoofer beneath the sprawling digital canvas and threaded the accompanying speakers around the room carefully.
Suddenly, jumping around as Mario on my Nintendo Switch was enough to shoot tingles down my spine and a child-like gleam of ecstasy across my face. I could hear the pitter-patter of footsteps reverberate through my room as the mustachioed plumber traversed the various, HD environments of Super Mario Odyssey.
And in the ensuing months, a casual enjoyment of TV and movies began to burgeon into something that could be called passion. A passive relationship with media quickly evolved into something more active, absorbing, and personal.
I owe a lot of my career as a writer to the arguably exorbitant purchase. If it weren’t for the TV, I don’t think I would ever have fallen quite so in love with the world of entertainment and reviews. I don’t think I would have found such a continual cause to create throughout these past few years.
Few financial fork-overs send the “I made a frivolous purchase” message more plainly than a shiny new Mustang or a massive 4K TV. To proudly refer to it as a wise use of money may be enough to elicit skepticism and outright scoffs. Yet, there are few items I’ve ever purchased that have changed my life so completely.
It’s often felt strange to me that a stigma exists around this type of investment. It’s a near-given these days that many of us will spend disproportionate periods of our lives staring at screens. The statistics around how much time we spend mindlessly binge-watching shows on Netflix are discouraging. But embedded within the purchase of a cutting-edge TV can be the concerted decision for all of the time spent watching those hypnotic screens to be more mindful.
It’s hardly a secret why movie theaters hold such an allure. We file into dark rooms and immerse ourselves in visuals and sound. In the modern age, the cinematic outings function as rare occasions when people are given a cause to put away their phones and get lost in new worlds. And in the gigantic TV sitting in my bedroom, I’ve found that same appeal day in and day out for entire years now. Horror movies are more terrifying, action movies more bombastic, and nature documentaries infinitely more captivating and lifelike.
The screensavers that play when the TV goes idle are comprised of mesmerizing drone footage from around the world. They serve as a slowly shifting display of art when the device is on but I’m not watching, and in the immersive environments that roll across the screen, I often find an unexpected source of wanderlust. A good TV screen might be deemed a reason to stay at home, but a vibrant image of a beautiful place can also be an impetus for escape.
A high-resolution video of a place in another part of the world will come to life in a way that it simply can’t when displayed in lower resolutions and in more limited ranges of color. In the same way that a smartphone with FaceTime capabilities can give people a vicarious glimpse into foreign geographies, and the phones of the past could not, there’s a hedonistic pleasure we deny ourselves in displaying our media on obscenely large screens.
Whether entertainment is your passion, or only an idle pastime (that still somehow seems to eat up an inordinate amount of your time), then the leaps and bounds made within the world of display technology may be worth exploring, too. The drawbacks of having your friends judge you for a wall-sized TV will all feel worth it when you’re lost in other worlds. It will feel like an investment well-made when Jurassic Park’s T-Rex makes your home theater rattle like it should — when the snowy peaks of The Shining are too enthralling to resist. When each show, movie, game, and documentary comes to life in new color. When we feel a call to engage actively with the stories people write and the narratives they craft and games they create.
And isn’t being engaged in our entertainment the whole point?
This article was originally published on Medium.
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I don't have a wall-sized TV, but the one I have is big enough for my purposes in a small studio apartment. I agree with you about the experience of watching a movie in a movie theater, especially an IMAX theater, with surround sound and 3-D.