{"id":4124,"date":"2019-08-01T13:45:41","date_gmt":"2019-08-01T13:45:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/?p=4124"},"modified":"2019-08-19T14:41:12","modified_gmt":"2019-08-19T14:41:12","slug":"not-all-addictions-are-destructive-my-long-time-love-affair-with-watching-television","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/2019\/08\/not-all-addictions-are-destructive-my-long-time-love-affair-with-watching-television","title":{"rendered":"Not All Addictions Are Destructive: My long-time love affair with watching Television"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Adeoye Falade, Avon HMO<\/strong><\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

On growing up<\/strong><\/h2>\n

I was the only boy for nine years so my childhood was initially boring. I had just my sisters to play with (and instead of actually playing, we fought a lot!). We were living in a block of flats then and there was just one other boy, our landlord\u2019s son but we still had to beg our sisters to join us when playing football or other games. Most times they avoided us, with good reason because we tended to get really rough sometimes. As a result, I preferred school because I had more people to play with there. You could call me the typical unserious boy, I was fascinated with play and however, I could catch my grove. So this opened up my love affair with Television, as it was one of my primary means of entertainment as a child, much to my parent\u2019s nightmare and tons of chores left undone.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

On being unserious and having a TV Addiction<\/strong><\/h2>\n

This was more of a headache for my grandmother, who in order to shield me from becoming completely useless, created a door for her Television which she ensured we had as little access to as possible. Back then, no TV station went on air before 4 pm and after watching Voltron and a few other shows, we got bored again and went outside to play. Imagine! It was almost as if we were insatiable with our quest to entertain ourselves. Then Clapperboard and AIT began operations so the game changed because the new guys started broadcasting in the morning. Even at that, there were very few programmes for kids beyond 6 pm. So as expected of African parents, mine tried their best to control what we consumed on air.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Then came cable and all bets were off because there was more variety. The restrictions still applied though, but I often snuck off to my landlord\u2019s house upstairs where the kids had a separate living room and were rarely disturbed.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I remember seeing a Jackie Chan movie and then taking a table knife to school to protect myself from some bully. I was in maybe primary 1 or 2 by then but the beating I got when I was reported ehn\u2026that\u2019s story for another day.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

On his top three TV shows<\/strong><\/h2>\n

I loved power rangers, biker mice and Mr Bean. Things either had to blow up or make me laugh to keep me interested. So action and comedy were my go-to. Doctor Who freaked me out so I largely avoided it like a plague because I was scared of the dark back then.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

On having options and the relevance of TVs<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Interestingly, I love gaming as well. Funny enough, it\u2019s one of the few things that takes me near the TV these days. Over the past decade, I developed a funny relationship with television as I became more selective of what programmes I consumed. If it wasn\u2019t soccer or Nat Geo, I wasn\u2019t interested.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There was a time, between 1999 and 2001 during which we were without electricity. Generators weren\u2019t mainstream then so all I had was books and radio.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I also lived without a TV for years and then when the 2018 World Cup came around, I went and got one. It\u2019s usually off till the weekend when I can watch games or play them but I still watch a lot of TV shows, on the internet. So it\u2019s not that I can\u2019t live without the screen, it\u2019s just that I absolutely love it!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0On life skills as a TV Buff<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Two lessons really:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Imagination can lead you to achieve amazing things.<\/li>\n
  2. Life is way more than what we can see; there\u2019s so much going on beyond our scope.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

     <\/p>\n

    On What Millennials Are Missing<\/strong><\/h2>\n

    Not really. In fact, they\u2019re getting the best of everything. All the great shows we saw are even being remade and the quality of what Millennials get today is miles ahead of what we grew up on \u2013 even though we thought the shows were badass back then.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    I saw an old clip of the Incredible Hulk, Captain America and Iron Man recently and I was just laughing. It was beyond silly but at the time, that was the height of special effects on screen.<\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

    I do think that they\u2019re missing out on quality Nigerian content though. Back then, NTA gave us impressive shows from New Masquerade, Things Fall Apart, Checkmate and so on. Most of those shows were produced by the NTA but it has fallen behind now. Other stations did not have that kind of budget so they couldn\u2019t toe that line. Eventually, NTA\u2019s decline in fortunes led to the growth of Nollywood \u2013 that\u2019s where all the actors went \u2013 and eventually became DSTV\u2019s gain.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    On going from TV lover to TV writer<\/strong><\/h2>\n

    Hmm, yes. It\u2019s interesting how the one thing my parents thought would kill me has brought me fame. (Look, mama, we made it!) This is how it started though: A few years ago, I got a call from Chris Ihidero, producer of MTV Base\u2019s Shuga about starting a proper reviews platform that would focus on Nollywood \u2013 TNS. He was at Amaka Igwe studios at the time but I\u2019d worked with him as an editorial intern in 2008 and we stayed in touch. Long story short, TNS was set up and reviewing movies became something I ended up loving. I loved filmmaking and film but delving into reviews changed everything for me as it was a new area of writing to explore.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Now about reviewing these movies, it is not as simple as whether the creative piece is good or bad but that\u2019s not all there is to it. It\u2019s also unravelling the thinking behind why films are being made. It\u2019s basically an identification of a standards problem, especially here in Nigeria. Anyone could make a film and get you to spend money on it but who\u2019s to say if it will be a waste of money for the consumer? When there\u2019s no form of independent accountability, people can serve you anything without caring about quality.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    On his favourite line from a TV Show<\/strong><\/h2>\n

    \u201cI drink and I know things.\u201d \u2013 Tyron Lannister (Game of Thrones). I just think it\u2019s cute, and funny too.<\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

    \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

    On the future of TV <\/strong><\/h2>\n

    I don\u2019t think TV is dying, just evolving. While there\u2019s a democratisation of media content and creators, television still has its place and has found a way to also thrive on the Internet. In three months, Disney will launch its streaming service, further increasing competition with platforms like Netflix and Amazon (Disney already owns major shares in Hulu) but who\u2019s still making those shows? The same platforms making what we watch on TV.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    I mentioned earlier that I rarely watch TV these days. That\u2019s misleading, I still do but the only real difference today is how I get to consume TV content and this is why I think television won\u2019t die, not for a long time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    By Adeoye Falade, Avon HMO     On growing up I was the only boy for nine years so my childhood was initially boring. I had just my sisters to play with (and instead of actually playing, we fought a lot!). We were living in a block of flats then and there was just one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4146,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cover"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4124"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4124\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4254,"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4124\/revisions\/4254"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}