Television More Exciting Than Real Life?

At Easter brunch yesterday, the conversation passed quickly through the usual family updates and comments about the restaurant of choice. With the trivialities out of the way, the discussion turned into a detailed exchange about The Sopranos. I was amazed to find that a table full of grown-ups was animatedly analyzing the lives of fictional characters. Are our own lives that boring, that we look to television for dialogue? Did I just miss the point since I have never seen even one episode of The Sopranos and generally try to limit my television viewing in favor of more appealing activities?

Somewhere along the line, TV went from being merely a source of entertainment to being a deeply ingrained part of life. The same is true of online social networking. In fact, I would venture a guess that many people accomplish their social networking while watching television. They probably feel accomplished- look at me, I’m multi-tasking! I’d put some clever reference here about the characters or last night’s plot, but, alas I was drawing and missed the season’s first episode.

Perhaps one day we will realize that there are plenty of stories from our day-to-day life worth sharing with others. Perhaps we will all become characters on some worldwide internet-based reality TV show. Perhaps we will someday realize that the person whose blog we read lives right down the street. Until then, any one care to discuss The Apprentice?