WAITING

SITTING THROUGH ADS IS BEGINNING TO FEEL OLD-FASHIONED.

Last week’s highly-anticipated (at least in my heart and soul) Bachelor finale, which aired on Monday night, was a whopping three hours long. Think about that for a minute. Three hours.

Because social media is what it is, I watched the episode live in fear of being spoiled as to which longsuffering lady would be proposed to and potentially condemned to a life with Nick Viall.

As I watched — tearing through snack after sugary snack, glass of wine after glass of wine — I realized that I couldn’t remember the last time I had sat through so many commercials. When else had I subjected myself to such a mind-numbing experience? With DVR and streaming networks like Netflix and CraveTV at my disposal (not to mention the accessibility of illegal streaming and/or downloading to the less morally upstanding being a mere Google search away), my life has been made considerably easier with no more commercials.

I no longer know what women are supposed to look like when they wash their hair with whatever shampoo. I couldn’t tell you which new laundry detergent is now the most efficient for dealing with rowdy teenage sons. And the last Apple ad I saw was probably on a billboard somewhere downtown.

This became an even starker realization on Tuesday night when the entire world seemed to clamour together to watch MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow release Donald Trump’s tax return — something she revealed she would be doing on Twitter a mere hour before her show was set to air. My feed was consumed at each commercial break with viewers bursting into fits of rage and frustration at simply having to wait for the next segment. Yes, this was partly due to Maddow’s slow and gradual buildup, but most of the blame should fall at the feet of the simple structure of a live television show that needs viewers to stick around to see every single ad that’s planned to be shown.

Streaming the episode later, I found my rising level of aggravation disturbing each moment Maddow would delay and declare she’d be revealing her supposed smoking gun “after the break.” Instead of piquing, my interest, shockingly, began to wane.

Chris Harrison, the Ryan Seacrest of the Bachelor/Bachelorette franchise, likely has nightmares echoing that phrase, so synonymous with early reality television that it felt like a comical relic to me as both he and Maddow volleyed it back and forth with malicious grins. And an hour in, I’m not sure I even remotely cared who Viall chose to be his “future wife.”

Frankly, the simple activity of “waiting” feels ancient, like something we should no longer be expected to do. The fact that we once had no choice but to have commercials brightly and loudly scream deals and products at us already seems archaic.

Especially now that we can grab our news with far more depth online, read it as we go and select what we want to hear. In fact, the Daily Beast published the same information Maddow was set to reveal 10 minutes into her broadcast, something I learned between the fits of impatient rage in my Twitter feed.

But as surprised as I am by my own lack of patience for commercials now — something I used to joke about stealing 50 per cent of my life — there’s something even more shocking happening to the younger generation. Streaming has become so ubiquitous that kids below the age of 10 don’t even know what commercials are.

According to a recent survey by Exstreamist, 82 per cent of children in Netflix-only homes and 38 per cent in regular television homes don’t have the faintest clue what a commercial is. After all, they never see them. In fact, Netflix saves kids from seeing about 150 commercials per year. Forget explaining such long-buried treasures as VHS, cassette tapes and, god forbid, record players. Our future grandchildren will be shocked to learn that we sat through advertisements during our entertainment.

The report went on to cite one particular anecdote in which a child visited a house with the prehistoric fossil that is a television set and began to cry from confusion when her favourite show was interrupted by a commercial break.

While that is certainly a trauma those of us even over the age of 20 are deeply familiar with, one imagines children are at least exposed to the 30-second commercials spliced between the occasional YouTube video. As is, it would seem, we’re living or at least soon will be living in a world without television commercials. Television ads are going to become a primitive reminder of a bygone era; one I would like to never be reminded of again.

Because frankly, I just don’t have the time.

FRANKLY, THE SIMPLE ACTIVITY OF ‘WAITING’ FEELS ANCIENT.