'Reality leaves a lot to the imagination'

This blog post comes after about three years after the previous one and I've been reading through and deleting (!) old posts but I've left the few that don't make me cringe too much!

The random thought for today is about the ever popular TV programme about 6 people in their 20s living in New York. I enjoy the show and will watch it over and over but I started to think about the extent to which it and programmes like it have affected society's young people. You watch the show like any like it and start to think that it is representative of real life and in some shape or form could be the existence one might lead if they were to leave 'college' or the equivalent of and move to the city to get on with life in the big bad world. It's the phrases used, the attitudes to life and love, the places they hang out that one ends up saying or having or going to. For example the hanging out in the coffee shop is something regardless of the show really is something people of all ages do, I think it could actually be the kind of thing that distinguishes the classes! Even in the current or should I say recent recession the occasional latte is one of the things I imagine many people wouldn't want to give up even in hard times as I would suggest it reinforces and reassures a sense of being 'ok'.

Like most soaps or sitcoms people watch them and could easily think, this kind of thing happens in my life or the things the characters are worried about are the things they worry about so maybe it's ok etc forgetting that maybe this might have been the inspiration but is not actual reality. I think sometimes what we imagine can be as real to us as anything that actually happens. I'm reminded of a fascinating article I read in the Live magazine from the mail on Sunday which could be the subject for a whole other blog but in the context of religious belief suggested that human beings accept to be true what they know not be true and are sometimes affected more profoundly by something that is not true. He points to the example of a man weeping when King Lear dies but do not shed a tear when their own father dies (granted I think this is more complex than he makes out). It has to be said though that many television programmes that are fiction, drama, speak to us profoundly an can command great emotional responses more so than actual real events in our own lives. I don't now if you've ever found yourself getting irate at the actions of a fictional character, empathising with them or liking them or disliking them, trying to predict their next move etc I think we all do it but a line obviously needs to be drawn when you start thinking this is he kind of thing that will happen tomorrow!

I think I read a comedian commenting of 'friends' saying things like it convinces people that 'it's a good idea to flat share well into your thirties' like it's a bad thing, but the point they were making is that people watch the show and start copying the things on it! I'm reminded of Bridget Jones as well, a piece of fiction and yet it's become the representative of young women everywhere and I for one do not wish to be a Bridget Jones! That could also be a blog of it's own! I think this is where I finish this blog!