The Lost Art of Channel Surfing

Before the video revolution of YouTube, before TikTok, before Instagram, before Netflix and HBO and Prime and Hulu and whatever the latest slop-peddling-streaming-service is popular right now, there was The Television. No, not the streaming kind, the real kind. And before browsing, swiping, tapping, streaming, and doomscrolling, there was Channel Surfing.And it was beautiful.The Television wasn’t smart. It didn’t have WiFi connectivity and an entire ecosystem of streaming apps and voice search, hell, it didn’t even have pause and rewind. Even as a physical object it wasn’t slick and it wasn’t sexy; in fact it was a dumb, fat little box that sat in your living room and whose remote you always kept losing because you buried it five feet deep into the crevices of your couch every time you decided to sprawl down on it, ready to munch on a bag of chips.But nonetheless The Television commanded attention because it was a portal to worlds unseen.I was reminded of its now-depreciated value…