My Parents Were Brutal Dictators Who Controlled TV Time Like the Video Censors in Today’s China By Andrew Malcolm for Red State
My unelected parents dictated the rules of my youthful world like China’s Communists, if I had known anything about those people in that faraway place who were fighting a revolution there at the very same time in the 1940s.
We had clear one-party rule in our house — two members of the National League of Parental Unity (NLPU) and me, a one-person proletariat. Its self-appointed ruling presidium of two actually and ruthlessly restricted and even censored my TV screen time with firm, non-negotiable limits.
Like China’s Communist Party just did for all video-game players among the younger folks in that country’s 1.4 billion population.
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The Wall Street Journal often has quite informative foreign stories that other outlets don’t bother with because they’re too interesting and they also require reporting, The Journal story said China’s National Press and Publication Administration issued strict new regulations Monday on video-gaming for the hundreds of millions of Chinese citizens younger than 18.
It seems many of them have become addicted to binge-playing if you can imagine such a thing, people spending hours after hours in front of a screen watching and playing the same games over and over. Sounds like binge-watching on streaming services. But such an affliction could never happen on this side of the Pacific.
The new Chinese rules, which take effect Wednesday, absolutely forbid all video-gaming Mondays through Thursdays. On Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays gaming is permitted – for one lousy hour. C’mon, man!
Chinese leaders have this crazy idea that video addiction among youths contributes to a whole host of social ills, including poor schoolwork and lax family obligations, which are important in Asia, regardless of government regime.
My parents came from Canada, not China, but they had the very same suspicions. It seems my evening chores like feeding, watering, and caring for the horse, dog, and cats, plus the weed-pulling, barn-sweeping, and poop-spreading tended to be neglected when the TV was available for afternoon viewing.
When full-scale broadcasting first arrived in the late 1940s, we did not have a television in our house. Joey Andrews’ family did have one behind us, which I may have watched from time to time if my parents didn’t know.
Before TV, I had appointment radio listening, especially “Sgt. Preston of the Yukon,” which was really produced in Detroit, which I thankfully did not know at the time.
Finally, when we first got a TV, it was a used 12-inch Dumont black-and-white. The TV remote was me, being told which of the two channels to turn to. Many programs were only 15 minutes long like the “Kukla, Fran and Ollie” puppet show or the “Camel News Caravan” with John Cameron Swayze. He went on to host the Timex watch ads — “Takes a licking and keeps on ticking.”
