Damn't TiVo - I'm Not Gay!
Today's Wall Street Journal has a hilarious article about a problem plaguing TiVo owning men who enjoy tv shows the "average male" typically does not - their TiVos think they're gay.
The article, which unfortunately doesn't have an online free version to read, mainly focuses on 32 year old film student Basil Iwanyk. According to Iwanyk, his TiVo inexplicably keeps recording television shows with gay themes as a result of his viewing habits. Iwanyk decided to set his gay TiVo straight by recording lots of war movies. But his counter programming overcompensated his profile, for now his TiVo thinks he is obsessed with Nazis, and records anything to do with Hitler and bombs.
I have yet to purchase a TiVo (excuse me while I duck), yet I can easily predict that in the eyes of my TiVo, I would be just as gay - if not more. What would trigger it? Oh, just lots of documentaries, foreign films, FoodTV, TLC, BBC America, the Classical music channel, PBS, HGTV, Discovery, etc., etc. Yep - in the eyes of my TiVo, I'd be obsessed with the "flow of a room," how to bake a mean cheesecake, and how to make sure your purse matches those fabulous new pumps you just bought. Ahhh...the glory of being a sports-loathing, aesthetically inspired American male.
Comments
you go, girl!
Posted by: saturdave at November 26, 2002 1:55 PM
The awful show "mind of the married man" had an episode in which the main character dealt with this issue. His solution was to set tivo to record programs with straight "adult" themes to counter balance it, which in turn caused some questioning by his wife. What an absolutely horrible show.
Posted by: Nate at November 26, 2002 2:07 PM
There was also an article in Details Magazine a couple months ago that touched upon the subject.
And I don't think the show is that bad...it's a zillion times better than Arliss.
Posted by: Mike at November 26, 2002 2:47 PM
I like both Arliss and Mind of the Married Man, so apparently I'm a gay man with bad taste in tv.
Posted by: James at November 26, 2002 2:49 PM
You can get the article here.
Posted by: Jim Jones at November 26, 2002 3:12 PM
King of Queens also had a story with a character who was suffering from the same problem. This is a sitcom epidemic!
Posted by: Sunil at November 26, 2002 3:50 PM
I also pretended to star in a television show in which my character suffered from this problem.
Posted by: Garrett Murray at November 26, 2002 5:35 PM
If you do decide to buy one. I would get a replaytv. It's network aware, you can download shows from other people that have one, and you can schedule to record stuff over the web. Also it does not assume sexual orientation.
Posted by: Mike Essl at November 26, 2002 5:46 PM
I, too, am TiVo-less.
Todd, are you interested at all in EyeTV? it's a TiVo-like solution for those of us who have Macs with hard drive space... ;) We have a demo of this at our next MUG meeting, so I'm thinking of checkin ' it out.
Posted by: courtney at November 26, 2002 6:27 PM
Jim Jones (shudder) - thanks for the link.
Courtney - Actually, I have been looking at EyeTV for a while, but the only drawback I can find is that I have digital cable. EyeTV requires a converter box if you have that.
Posted by: Todd Dominey at November 26, 2002 8:11 PM
Not that there's anything wrong with that... ;-)
Posted by: Bob at November 26, 2002 10:31 PM
Wanted to chime in about EyeTV. I also have an EyeTv (2 replays and an EyeTV, i have a tech problem). Anyway, I have digital cable and you don't need a converter, you just need to run your cable box into the eyetv. So the problem is that unless you buy one of these you can't change channels with the eyetv software. But i have to say it is really choice to be able to watch tv in a little window on your mac. Also the guys at ElGato are really great about updates and customer support in general.
Posted by: Mike Essl at November 27, 2002 12:20 AM
