I Miss Watching TV With My Brother
Game of Thrones is back in our lives after making us wait even longer than usual to get the “good good” and every time GoT comes back, it’s an event. All over the world. Game of Thrones, regardless of your perceived quality of it, is the biggest show in the world and as it builds to the world ending, cataclysmic, fuckpocalypse that is presumably going to end next season and the show with a bang(giggity), it’s influence is only going to grow.
To mark events such as this, a celebration is typically thrown. In the case of TV, a viewing party is the apt choice. You and all your friends pile into a room, hopefully with ample space, and let the TV inundate you as your favorite characters say all the things you’ve been fantasizing them saying for ten months. You laugh together, you scream together, you sit in silence together and if it means that much to you, you cry together. You especially talk together. You theorize together. You debate. It’s really a beaut.
I’ve been to one viewing party in my life and while I think they were founded specifically for sports, it just didn’t feel right. Sports aren’t scripted. Ask any sane person and they’ll tell you the same. There can be big plays and between those, hours of nothingness. It just doesn’t feel as satisfying as watching, say the premiere or finale of a fantastic season of a great show. Viewing parties are distinct because of the ebb and flow of the programming, which is planned, and the effect it can have on the room, which is only true of sports when they’re coming to an end, or at least that’s the conclusion I’ve come to.
I was born into, I believe, the first generation to predominantly grow up with the computer and internet as a pillar in our lives rather than a fun hobby. This means that communication with friends and family has been uniformly disjointed most of my life. I’ve obviously had the pleasure of enjoying peoples company but I feel that nowadays what makes those encounters for me is the sheer fact that I’m speaking to a person rather than an avatar. It’s become all about the novelty of the damn thing rather than it’s quality. So for as much as I’ve liked the idea of a viewing party, I’m being encroached upon by people who would rather be on the phone or texting or live tweeting their thoughts rather than just be in a room together. Everybody wants to be heard but not necessarily have an actual talk.
Which is why I miss having my brother around.
He’s not dead, don’t worry. As a matter of fact, he’s three train stops away from me at this very moment. He’s not far at all. But that distance, compared to the lack of it before, has made all of the difference. For the longest time, my life was a story. I was the protagonist, my family led by my big brother were some kind of league of villainy always trying to keep me down. But this was a fabrication in my infantile imagination. Really he was a good friend, a great roommate and the perfect person to sit down and watch TV with. Binging through shows on Netflix with him became my informal viewing party.
When you picture families decades ago during family time, you picture them eating dinner at 7 PM, watching TV together afterwards and promptly sleeping. Sure, it’s dated, but it’s the general idea of quality time with the fam. I’ve never known such an experience. My family eats dinner together on Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve. We watch TV, but not the same shows and definitely not in the same room. Honestly, if you walked into the house while we were all there, you’d think we hate each other. The little bit of normalcy I had was TV with my brother. Days and weeks went by and we’d just tear through show after show, whether it be some dumb anime or Chuck, which infamously took us way too long to get through.
And it wasn’t even just normalcy that I got out of it. It’s 2017 and we use forums like Twitter to hurl opinions and insults, so it was refreshing to sit down, consume a thing and talk about it afterward like a dignified human being. I’m 20, I don’t even know what the fuck a water cooler is let alone how to talk at one but the desire to have an equal with whom I’d discuss things with was strong until I realized I had that right under my nose. And those conversations started with Game of Thrones and with my older brother. I was late to the show, only beginning it just a month before Season 5 premiered, but through every episode, I fired questions and thoughts at my brother at a rapid pace. When A-Z dropped dead, I met him with surprise, sadness, and occasional joy. And in return he met with unabashed joy at the fact that I was enjoying this thing he loved so. I would hate to put words in his mouth and he would too, but I think he was glad to have us both on the same page again.
I have this very distinct memory of my friend being over at my house. We had come back from playing ball and he was the last to leave, as always. Thanks to his impeccable timing, he finally decided to leave just as my brother was opening the door to come in. This friend is practically a brother so he was greeted as such, which included catching up with his life and, in this family, what you’ve been watching. Naturally, it didn’t take too long for the conversation to gravitate over towards GoT and what was supposed to be a farewell turned into me and my brother breaking down the intricacies of R+L=J to him over the course of an hour. To keep it concise, we blew his fucking mind.
I haven’t had a great TV conversation since. And I suspect it’ll be a while before I have another like it. My brother moving away has had impacts on me that not even the Three Eyed Raven could’ve foretold. But while it makes me sad to know I lost my brother in binge, I’m almost happy that watching Game of Thrones alone last week reminded me of this great unspoken thing we had.
Love you bro. Let’s watch some anime soon.