In which I explain the difference between real people and TV people

Most of us lead lives of quiet desperation, or however it is the famous quote goes. We work jobs that we hate with every cubic inch of our bodies and we come home at the end of the day wishing that we didn't have to return the next. Of course, we have rent and electricity and car insurance and student loans and our cable bill to pay and we have booze and food and drugs and diverting little electronics to buy. If we don't return ourselves to that dimly lit, blood pressure raising, completely unfullfilling dead end pit of despair, then we can't have all the things we want and need. If we don't surrender ourselves to the machine, we have to be that guy who wanders around my neighborhood approaching everyone with "I don't want no money or nothing..." or, even worse, we move back in with our parents. So, we cling to these pathetic jobs with all the might in our weak little hands and we hand over a piece of our spirit and our will to live each and every day (except Saturday and Sunday: then we go grocery shopping and do lauindry). We don't sleep or hold normal conversations for a week because we are convinced that we will be cut loose from our jobs for which we feel over-qualified for sending errant faxes which Derrida and Lacan would have a field day discussing if I only remembered that much of college.

The people on TV are different. They have jobs that they would go to even if they hit the Powerball tomorrow. You couldn't keep those doctors on Grey's Anatomy out of the hospital with a National Guard unit. They work all the time and they actually love it. They skip out on holidays and weekends and all of those things for which we, the quiet and the desperate, live. This, I think, is the main appeal of the show. Sure, it's about pretty people with "problems" just like ours. Except, I can't remember the last time I fucked a coworker in the break room or accidentally killed someone at work. Sure, it's escapist because of all the soap opera crap and it's escapist because they're doctors and they're dreamy, but mostly, for me at least, it's escapist because it's about people who love their jobs Yes, it's also grief porn and charm porn but the most unbelievable part for me is that it's career satisfaction porn.

Even on "reality" porn, like The Wire there are people who are passionate about their work. They really want to improve the police department or the schools or whatever. Of course, on that particular show, their passion is there just to be smashed against the mean streets until it is bloody and unrecognizable. But, passion is there. The feds on Without a Trace and the cops on Law and Order give their lives meaning by doing their jobs. Even on Studio 60, people think they are part of something important (which should give the show a nice burst of tragicomedy. It, of course, is lost way too deep up its own ass to realize this).

On TV, everyone has something meaningful in their lives. In reality, we are lucky if we can find something meaningful to watch after work. We are left to live their lives vicariously while ours slip away from us.

We're all just trying to get by without hating ourselves too much. We leave the satisfying lives of passion to the pretty people on TV. It is why escapism will never die: There's too much reality out there.