This post is a response to this post by Hank Green
There is definitely a certain amount of prestige which surrounds downloading.
I chose to watch Sherlock illegally. That wasn’t a decision I chose lightly and it isn’t something I think I’ll ever do routinely. I will champion the legal watching of television with my dying breath. Sherlock was the exception. I’ll still wait to watch Doctor Who, hiding resolute in my spoiler proof bunker. I watched Sherlock that way because I honestly felt like it was my only choice.
One of my main reasons for watching TV the legal way wherever I can is that one day I want to work in TV. It seems ridiculous to buy into a culture that many believe is killing the industry. I don’t think this is necessarily the case, the popularity of television is far from failing, but I do think that the internet has the potential to change to way we watch TV. And that could be very scary indeed.
Despite the various people screaming in defiance, I think I agree with Hank. There is a prestige to downloading. A certain allure. It is so easy to feel excluded when all the people around you (both actually and virtually) are championing one way of viewing (oh the joys of watching a download bar!) while you remain firm to another (sitting in front of a TV at an allocated time). I agree that it isn’t JUST the quality of the programming that leads people to download. If everyone is tormenting something it must be good right? It must be worth the effort?
I think this has produced a culture where local shows are looked down on. More and more people will tell you they “don’t watch TV”. What they mean by that, of course, is that they don’t watch TV on TV.
Right now the ABC is going through a pretty amazing stage. The shows which are being produced in Australia have suddenly soared in quality. The production values, script writing, acting, everything, is at an international standard. For the first time I can remember, I am more excited about what my own country is producing than what’s going on anywhere else in the world.
I’ll admit that Australia has never made Sherlock or Doctor Who. But I loved Laid and I’m quickly falling in love with Outland. I watched The Slap with the rest of the nation (you can tell a show is really popular when, instead of live tweeting it, your Twitter feed goes totally dead the minute it starts). I plan to make myself free when Dance Academy comes back on and every Wednesday night (seriously- Woodley, Gordon St Tonight, Outland. That is a line-up I'd become a social recluse for).
What makes me sad is that people don’t torrent local content. I know you CAN (I’m reliably informed you can torrent anything) but without the kind of hype big international releases get, how are people going to know what to look for? There’s a kind of stigma around local shows- ‘But that was made here. Why would that be any good?’
Is there anyone, anywhere is the world who torrents our shows? And if the answer is ‘no, not really’ does that make them less legitimate?
