While reading William’s blog, I noticed that someone left a “what is a blog or blogging?” comment behind. No, I’m not even going to attempt to answer that question – it’s been debated enough before. But I thought of a few things:
:: How soon until we see a character on TV with a blog? Can you see Rachel from Friends running a “baby blog” documenting her baby’s first steps and first words? Or how about a Phoebe blog? That would be pretty damn funny.
:: Why don’t you see characters on TV online more often? I mean, we all spend 20 hours a day online. So why don’t the people on TV? What’s up with that?
:: Why don’t people have internet industry related jobs? I bump in to people all the time that have web-related jobs – but why don’t people on TV?
22 replies on “Just a Passing Thought or Two…”
are we really losers like that? We really spend 20 hrs a day online??? And I wonder why I’m getting carpal tunnel. Good gawd!
That’s just it, don’t you see? Most people really don’t spend 20 hours a day online. In my “real” life, I am the only person I know with a blog, and most of my friends/family hardly ever touch a computer, let alone invest hours in this.
It’s funny that you decided to use “Friends” as an example, because it’s one of the few shows I can think of where any reference to the Internet is actually even made — Monica busts on Chandler about surfing porn in a couple of episodes.
I actually wish I knew people with a blog… I’m jealous of Kymberlie for getting to be your friend all the time, not just online 😉 But I would hope that this would float over to the media more in the near future. To me, it really is an admirable way to document life online, and I can’t imagine NOT doing it after being a blogger since early2000.
And you are right, why don’t we see people on tv shows that are web designers or programmers? I could see most tv shows making fun of this whole area of work, but really, we are special 😉
I think that Molly, the character on “Maybe It’s Me” (WB, Fridays), had a blog (or at least, online journal), but they never made referrence to her designing it or used the word “blog”.
However, “Maybe It’s Me” has been yanked from the next fall lineup, so it doesn’t really matter much anyway.
Ya know. It never crossed my mind that not a single show ever has anything going on about the internet or blogging. Good point, Christine! Thought: If Seinfeld was still on, would one of those characters be bloggin’? If so, which one? I’m thinkin’ Kramer.
Shows like the Law & Order ones sometimes make ref to the Internet, but it’s always in a negative instance, so if that’s going to be the case then I’d rather NOT have it mentioned.
hmmm, there’s a few people out there in tv land that have a blog. for the trek fans, mr shatner has a blog at (http://williamshatner.com/billspace/index.asp). i have yet to see anyone’s blog draw up more hits/comments numbers than wil wheaton (http://www.wilwheaton.net/).
to those of us native to nyc, al roker (http://roker.com/journal.cfm) has a rather amusing blog too.
for music fans, no doubt (http://www.nodoubt.com/journal/) and mr kiss, gene simmons (http://www.genesimmons.com/) keep updated journals as well.
there’s a whole bunch of people… melanie griffith, asia carerra (the true queen of weblogs), and yes even rupaul (http://www.rupaul.com/weblog.shtml) keep steady blogs. 🙂
just run a search on google for ‘celebrity blogs’ and you’ll be surprised who blogs. 😉
i doubt many celebrities would do it just because a great deal of them are generally clueless when it comes to technology. hell, most of them can’t tie their own shoes without help from their assistants… *lol*
Chandler: “Yeah, we saw this really interesting website about marriage and how totally unnecessary it is and how its just a way for the government to keep tabs on you.”
Monica: “I am y’know glad to hear that you’re branching out on what you look at on the Internet.”
Hehe, one of the top comments reminded me of that 🙂 But I agree, a sitcom based around geeks would be AWESOME!! I wonder how popular it would be … I think there’s a good reason that they don’t really portray work all that often in sitcoms. Most people watch them to escape from their work. 🙂
Oh, and just another note, Moby has a great blog on his site (http://www.moby.com) that he often updates multiple times per day. I read it from time to time and it’s often very interesting.
well, since it’s still so darn hard to explain blogging to non-bloggers (you know, that blank look), i don’t think we’ll be seeing geeks like ourselves on TV too soon.
The way I see it Doogie Howser was the first TV character with a blog, really. I mean he wrote every night, was pretty insightful, for a kid doctor and all, and did so on a computer. Sounds and looks a lot like a blog from my view.
I know that they *have* blogs out there (the stars do) but the charecters on the shows don’t.
As for “real” people not being online that much – my parents both use the Internet, my mom has friends that use the internet. Her old college roommate in Alaska who didn’t even have electricity or running water in her house when I was younger now has the internet. I don’t know too many people who *don’t* have the internet – so I think it’s funny that they don’t talk about it much at all during regular sitcom shows.
If Seinfeld was still on they would all have blogs … about nothing. Elaine’s would be one I would read daily, Jerry’s would be really, really fun and worth a good laugh, George would try constantly to make him someone he isn’t (I’m thinking buff, tall, and a full head of hair) and Kramer’s? Well, I think Hoopty has Kramer’s blog already covered…
Hrm … interesting potential marketing idea. Have “real blog sites” for characters in sitcoms – i.e. one of the Friends characters (not the actor, but the character) ACTUALLY having a blog site that they interact on. Even neater would be that person actually interacting with the blog on air. Of course, since shows are filmed months in advance, that won’t likely happen, but still … a neat concept. (Might work better for something like MTV’s Real World or another of the real TV shows 🙂
hey! yeah, i never thought of those before! why not, Mr. Tee-veee Executive Man? hrm? are we bloggy WebHeads not good enough for tv? are we not mainstream enough with our dot-com jobs and nerdy Chris Pirillo t-shirts? hrrmmmmm?
I’m sorry to say that the idea of some “cool” TV character having a blog is somewhat lost on me. As much as I love blogs, I’m afraid that Phoebe or Rachel are the last one’s I’d think of doing something like this. The one’s who would have blogs are more like Joey or Dawson from Dawson’s Creek. (Can’t you just see her professing her girlish angst, or him expounding on the center of his being.) These types ring a little more true to the medium. Unfortunatly!
Now it just points to the official website, but a couple of seasons ago Jack on “Will & Grace” had a blog of sorts that they menioned on the show (and it was how I found the site) — justjack.com. I think it was the episode where Will and Jack kissed live on the “Today Show”. justjack.com was an hysterical parody diary! It had letters from Rosario, a chronicle of her Visa application process after they got married, descriptions of his auditions — it was all a very tongue-in-cheek online diary. This was back before even I knew what a blog was. I was really bummed when they just made the URL redirect to the NBC site!
Doogie Howser, MD kinda had a blog. He entered something on his computer (journal style) at the end of every show.
ah yes, Doogie. i forgot about that.
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well all this stuff about why celebrities like me do not spend 20 hours a day on a computer is rediculous. We have things we need to do like make movies or make a record….stuff like that..stuff that actully means stuf to us.
watch “The Perfect Man”
I saw that in the theater last summer – her “custom” blog software with the real-time updates cracked me up. I still shout whenever I hear a reference to a blog in anything. It has come up in Crossing Jordan, Law & Order and a few other shows in the past year or so. So I guess it only took them about 3 years to catch on in Hollywood, huh? (Since I wrote this in 2002.)