I remember a time when all that was required to enjoy a good bit of TV was, well, a good bit of TV. A simpler time, when you would watch your favourite programmes, free from distraction, and then discuss them with your school or work pals the following day. For half of you, that probably still sounds like a normal course of events, but for the rest, those days are long gone. And what one thing is responsible for revolutionising the way so many of us enjoy our TV shows? Why it’s Twitter of course.
Before I go any further, I must admit that I’m a huge fan of Twitter. But like most of you, before I signed up I struggled to grasp what could be so great about it. I thought it was for people so dull or annoying in real life that the only audience they could find for their worthless opinions was an anonymous online vacuum. And of course, it absolutely is for those people, but thankfully it is also full of genuinely insightful and entertaining individuals.
The main reason that I’ve stuck with Twitter is because of the (mostly) positive impact it has had on the whole TV viewing experience. Case in point: Question Time. QT is – with the exception of those rare occasions when they go and throw a nutter onto the panel for a laugh – the most mind-numbingly boring hour of television a person could ever subject themselves to, and I say that as a Politics student. But the Twitterati’s analysis of QT is brilliant, satirical, witty, ridiculous, and always entertaining. For me, it’s made the missable, unmissable.
Question Time is a shining example of how Twitter can be a cause for good. A shared audience united in their analysis of whatever it is they’re all watching. It’s the best example of that Big Society thing that big Dave keeps banging on about that I can think of.
But I’m afraid to say that this positive aspect is simply the silver lining to an ever increasing cloud. And in the case of Twitter and its relationship with TV that cloud takes on the form of lazy producers relying on Twitter to fill air time. From Ant and Dec’s tweeting from the jungle, to the mind boggling, fourth wall destroying travesty that was James Franco’s tweeting from the mother of all TV events, the Oscars, it seems that the consensus in TV land is that if people love tweeting about TV, they’re sure to love tweeting on TV.
But where will it end? As a kid I used to read those Goosebumps books where you could pick what happens next by turning to the relevant page. My fear is that a twitter equivalent is where we’re heading if we’re not careful. ‘Should Ken dump Deirdre and run off with Audrey? Tweet us @corrie.’ I’ve seen a horrible vision of the future, and if it does come true, no doubt you’ll find me on Twitter bragging about how I told you so.