What Geek Media Do You Refuse To Partake In?

[jian]

@jian Totally get you’re always gonna hate House, which is fine. But it sure seems like you’re stuck on, this is a totally nonsensical way for a medical professional to behave. It is, there’s a whole normal hospital going on in the background, and then this guy.

Yeah, but is it that laughable of an approach to the human condition? Does maybe everyone have some blind spots in understanding themselves and things the don’t want anyone else to know?

And his underlings take them. And the show’s general quest is to find out what they didn’t say…what people don’t say about themselves is often the most revealing in what the show is actually about, which is not medical diagnosis. In a practical medical setting, probably no, don’t have to break into there homes to discover if what they are saying is true.


You can identify with him if you also, on some level, also believe that the people around you are idiots ignorant of themselves and reality. It’s a show for cynics.

If you float through the world believing most people nice, honest with themselves and others, then you can identify with his friend Dr. Wilson, who House loves, but torments. You sound much like that character on the show.

Edit: compliment, not a criticism there. He is the good guy on the show.

I’m not stuck so much on his being a bad doctor, it’s that he’s a bad doctor but he’s a successful one in terms of diagnosing and treating his patients (mostly) despite his actively doing things that would make that less likely. It’s like Atlas Shrugged, it’s polemical science fiction where the rules of reality are just different from ours, but never acknowledged as such.

As for it being a show for cynics - sure, why not? Plenty of doctors are cynical, it’s a reasonable response to their daily life. I’ve definitely been there, the NHS is made of cynicism. But House acts like being cynical is a reason to stop being empathic or compassionate, which is just wrong. If you’re so burned out you don’t care about people, you’re going to hurt them. Stop working and get help.

(And yes, thank you, I do appreciate being compared to Wilson, he seems like a great doctor and person.)

 

[Smackpixi]

But House acts like being cynical is a reason to stop being empathic or compassionate, which is just wrong.

Yeah. I think if you watched the entirety of the show one step back, it actually agrees with you in its themes. Also, pretty much none of his diagnoses are arrive at by doing actually medicine, that merely confirms the rest of the story.

Pretty sure if anyone managed to make a successful comedic drama about my profession I’d be saying, that is not how insurance contracts work at all.

 

[jian]

Yeah. I think if you watched the entirety of the show one step back, it actually agrees with you in its themes. Also, pretty much none of his diagnoses are arrive at by doing actually medicine, that merely confirms the rest of the story.

Pretty sure if anyone managed to make a successful comedic drama about my profession I’d be saying, that is not how insurance contracts work at all.

I’m pretty certain all his diagnoses come from him doing medicine? By which I mean gathering information, ordering tests, trying treatments, and educated guesswork. He seems to come up with the correct diagnosis and treatment in most episodes (with a few missteps along the way, of course) despite being an objectively bad doctor. It’s not about whether it’s realistic - of course it’s not - it’s that it’s basically copaganda but for medicine.

 

[trappedslider]

it’s that it’s basically copaganda but for medicine.

short of outright saying "Don't do this job" or focusing only on the negative aspect every tv show centered around an occupation is propaganda to various degrees.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Television and Movies. The mediums. That includes streamers like Netflix, that includes genres like Anime and horror and rom coms and cringe humor and reality tv and and and.

I used to be into it - my wife and I went to the movies multiple times a month. And then my kids were born on each side of the turn of the millenium; and I stopped watching TV and movies - except I guess their power ranges dvds and disney vhs on loop All. The. Time. Once they got old enough where I had time again to watch stuff - I found I wasn't really interested. I'd go to stuff with them, like the various fantasy and super hero tentpoles. But gradually as they got older and wanted to engage with these properties in their own way and with their friends/girlfriends, I watched less and less. Last movie I saw I think was Black Widow in 2021; and last TV show I finished was Tiger King - but mostly because we watched it as a family during the pandemic.

I just wouldn't choose to engage with a TV show or a movie as "something to do" for myself.

I DO watch sports highlights, comedy clips, and music videos on youtube. I mean, that's a rabbit hole all on its own.

 

[jian]

short of outright saying "Don't do this job" or focusing only on the negative aspect every tv show centered around an occupation is propaganda to various degrees.

Yes, that’s basically true, depending. I compared House to copaganda because it isn’t just saying “doctors are awesome” but “bad doctors are awesome”. Which I hate, because perpetuating harmful stereotypes about my job - and leading people to think that’s what good or effective doctors are actually like - is both unnecessary and harmful. But yeah, I’m sure it happens about a lot of jobs on TV, not least police officers.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

bad doctors are awesome

Why do you consider House a "bad Doctor" when someone who is good with patients but a lousy diagnostician (something I have plenty of personal experience of) is considered a good doctor? I would suggest that the system that insists House does something he knows he is bad at, rather than letting him do what he is good at, is the thing that is bad. Is it any wonder that he gets angry? If I point out that like Holmes, House clearly shows signs of neurodivergence, would it make a difference?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

(I think the Henry Cavill Holmes is a perfectly reasonable version of the character, though he's probably too strikingly good-looking. Mycroft is about half the size he should be, but then "thin Mycroft" is now the default, as seen with Christopher Lee, Mark Gatiss, Rhys Ifans etc.

Charles Grey played Mycroft a couple of times in the 70s and 80s, with at least a degree of corpulence, as described in the books.

(Christopher Lee also played Sherlock several times, and was rather good.)

However, the novels should be considered doubly unreliable. Watson is called out as an unreliable narrator in the novels by Holmes, prone to sensationalise and exaggerate. And when it comes to Mycroft, Watson is largely dependant on what Holmes has to say about him, and it's clear that Holmes is not objective on this topic.

the reason Watson doesn’t say, “just tell me the solution and show us how clever you are, you’re clearly gagging to”

Unreliable narrator. It's actually Watson who doesn't tell us the solution until the end, and Watson, according to Holmes, is prone to sensationalise.

 

[jdrakeh]

D&D novels as canon. Ensconcing the FR novels in official canon was the thing I hate TSR the most for. I mean, from a financial standpoint, I understand why they did it. But the headaches it caused me as a DM. JESUS. Woe unto me for not reading every damn FR novel that they published. I always had at least one player (and oftentimes more than one) at my table who had read every FR novel that TSR published, who was quick to remind me that the events therein were officially canon, and that if I didn't cleave to those events, then I was running FR wrong. This is also part of why I hate FR.

 

[GrimCo]

I'm willing to give most things at least one try before i nix them. That said:

-let's plays on yt like CR; never got into it, watching few hours of people playing d&d is not interesting even for background noise
-WH as tabletop; i don't really have patience for painting; i will play ocassional game of Kill Teams, and that's as far as i'm willing to engage
-TCG/CCG; played some Pokemon in elementary school back in the day, some MtG in HS. But we proxeid as hell in those days, buying whole boxes of boosters was unheard of and very few people had money to buy singles. When i see how much decks cost today, yeah, no thanx.
-MMORPG; played WoW when it came out, stoped when Cataclysm came out. Played some LOTRO, Old republic and Conan. I just don't like grinding part, it feels like job and i play games to unwind from work
-anime: these days, either short series (8-12 episodes max) or feature film lenght; don't have time or energy to watch 200+ episodes of anything
-Dr. Who: watched one with 9th doctor when series restarted in 2005, dropped it when 10th doctor came, never went back, it just isn't my jam.
-Star Trek: last series that i actually watched and liked was Enterprise, after that, i lost all interest, watched S1 of Picard, didn't like new format, dropped it, have no intention of watching anything new ST related
-Wheel of time: tried reading it multiple times, lost interest mid book 1 every time, never gonna try again
-fanfiction of any kind: not interested
-erotic and romance novels disguised as fantasy: i don't mind good romance subplot in fantasy, but i don't care for romance or sex as main plot of "fantasy" book
-manga: only one i read is Berserk; zero interest for anything else
-light novels: read decent amount of Vampire Hunter D ones, anything else- no interest
-anything by GRR Martin: i read books as they were coming out, read some older stuff (i really like Armageddon Rag), but i'm over it, don't care if he ever finishes series, won't read any spinnoffs on pure principle, in short, F that lazy mofo.
-Brandon Sanderson: got one of his books for birthday ages ago, tried reading it, it just didn't grabbed me, lost interest in him as a writer, don't care about Stormlight Archives and Cosmere and stuff
-LARP: tried fantasy larp in HS, it was fun running around and beating friends with dildo shaped foam swords, but i'm over it; official V:tM larp, that i can't stand, rock/paper/scissor for conflict resolution, "items" are cards (no prop guns), it's just boring. When combat starts, let's put on facemask, draw some nice gas blowback airsoft guns and have proper shootout
-soulslike game: i don't have time or energy to "git gud", i play games for story and light combat (turn based preferably)

It's a long list, but if i remember something else, i'll add it. Guess i should return my geek card