Last week I was watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade when something about it made me kind of emotional.
I realized it’s one of the only things that still feels like TV.
Like real TV.
No “Click Play.”
No “Skip Intro.”
No algorithm deciding what’s next.
It’s just… on.
The same balloons, the same lip-syncing, the same hosts pretending not to freeze. It’s all so weirdly comforting.
And I miss that. I miss TV that feels like TV.
You know, when things aired at a certain time and you either caught them or you didn’t. When you didn’t have to choose what to watch because it was already chosen for you.
I miss the campy intros and cheesy commercial breaks. I even miss the bad TV movies that filled the day with something mediocre and totally predictable.
TV used to just exist around you. You could fold laundry or cook dinner, and it would still be there, quietly keeping you company like a roommate who doesn’t require constant conversation.
It makes me think about how in high school I’d go to my friend Jessica’s house after cheer practice on Tuesdays to watch Pretty Little Liars every week. We’d talk through basically the entire episode but still understand every unhinged storyline.
It wasn’t about the show being great, it was about the ritual. The knowing what to expect. The doing it together.
And now, everything I watch feels like a decision. Like an investment.
If I start something new, it has to hook me immediately or I’m out. And not just because time feels scarce but because everything is trying to convince me it’s worth my time.
Every show wants me to binge.
Every platform wants me to rate it, review it, share it.
It’s just so much damn work.
When did watching TV start to feel like homework?
TV used to fill space without asking for anything in return. It didn’t need your engagement. It didn’t care if you were paying attention. It just existed alongside you, like a friend who doesn’t need validation.
Sure, producers looked at ratings, but now everything is so hyper-optimized with data that your favorite show gets cancelled because you blinked for too long.
Everything feels like it’s fighting for your focus. Which I guess is how we ended up in this…
Intention Economy,
when everything wants your attention, intention becomes the real currency.
Every click, every “Play Next,” every “yes” is a little transaction.
The other thing I miss is how our attention used to overlap.
We all watched the same finale.
The same awards show.
The same breaking news clip.
You could talk about it the next day and everyone knew exactly what you meant.
But now, attention feels like private property. Everyone’s tuned into their own algorithmic universe.
No overlap.
No shared noise.
Just a bunch of us curating our own feeds and missing the accidental magic of bumping into the same thing together. And the irony is: intention was supposed to make us feel more in control. But it mostly just made me tired.
If I don’t press play, nothing happens.
If I don’t choose something, the screen stays blank.
And somehow that makes enjoyment heavier, not lighter. I think that’s what I actually miss.
Not TV itself but the surprise of it all. The happy accidents. The moments that slipped in because you weren’t choosing so hard.
Algorithms don’t understand that part of us
They flatten our moods into preferences. They mistake a Tuesday-night comfort binge for a lifelong identity. They think if you watched three cooking shows, you want 4000 more (and maybe they’re not wrong)…
But our preferences aren’t data points. They’re weather systems.
They drift.
They contradict.
They wander.
And curiosity only shows up when it has room to wander too.
There’s this study that found curiosity gets harder when people feel overloaded, but it comes back when the environment feels low-stakes.
Curiosity thrives when play is allowed.
When discovery isn’t a task.
When the outcome doesn’t matter.
Which is basically the opposite of how media feels right now.
Everything is optimized for engagement. Even our downtime must be strategic.
So maybe the most intentional thing we can do is let something be unintentional again.
Give ourselves one tiny pocket where discovery isn’t optimized or even that important. Where we don’t have to binge it, rate it, or pay full attention.
Just… let it reach us.
Sometimes that’s why I put on old 90s cartoons or early-2000s reruns on YouTube. It isn’t even about nostalgia half the time, it’s about how little they demand from me.
No storyline to track. No pressure to keep going.
Just a gentle hum in the room that makes space for my mind to wander again. And maybe part of it is that it feels like sharing attention with a past version of myself—back when watching something didn’t require intention at all.
Like leaving a random rerun on while you make dinner.
Or watching something live simply because it’s live.
Or pressing play on the show your friend swears by, even if you only half-watch it while folding laundry.
Not as homework.
Not as self-improvement.
Not to “catch up.”
But because we all deserve…
Moments of unoptimized fun
Because unoptimized fun is how we remember we’re wired for connection, not just consumption.
The things we loved used to pull us together, not scatter us into personalized silos.
Somewhere along the way, sharing a show stopped feeling like discovery and started feeling like a chore. We still trade recommendations, but they don’t pull us together the way they used to. They just stack up like tiny obligations.
We need media that leaves a little open space again, something people can drift through like a cultural checkpoint.
A place where the stakes are low and surprise is not only allowed but welcomed!
It’s strange that as our feeds have become more personalized, they have taken us further from the very people we are trying to connect with.
My favorite part of the parade this year wasn’t even the parade. It was texting my mom while we watched from opposite sides of the country.
We never get to spend the holidays together anymore because flights are impossible but for a little while we were reacting to the same goofy floats at the same time and sending each other the same silly commentary.
Unexpectedly, seeing Santa make his grand appearance at the end of the parade almost brought me to tears.
It took me back to laying directly in front of the TV, feet kicked up, eyes glued to the screen, waiting for my Nana to finish cooking so I could try a piece of turkey fresh out the oven.
In that moment, it felt like home.
Like a tiny loophole in the distance, in time, in space. Proof that shared attention still works, even when you are nowhere near each other. Three hours of time zones away, we were still together.
And honestly, that is the real invitation. Not just to make room for unoptimized fun in our own lives, but to create those spaces for other people too.
Places where connection feels easy instead of engineered.
Places where curiosity can wander back in and reintroduce us to each other.
That’s what the parade reminded me of.
And yes, the whole thing takes a city of people to pull off but what it offers us is simple: For a few hours, millions of people are watching the same odd, glittery procession drift down Sixth Avenue.
It’s a cultural heartbeat syncing us back up again. A reminder that we still know how to show up together, even when everything else pushes us into our own personalized realities.
And I think that’s what I want from media again.
Not to impress me.
Not to optimize me.
Not to predict me.
Just to give my curiosity a soft place to wander back in.
A little unoptimized fun.
The kind you don’t plan, don’t measure, and don’t mean to find, but need anyway.
And with that, I’m off to fold laundry to Jersey Shore reruns. If you end up finding your own little pocket of unoptimized fun today, I’d love to hear about it.
Talk soon, byeeeeee!
Other fun stuff
🍳 I wrote a Video Repurposing Cookbook — Remember a while ago when I kept hinting that I was working on something I was really enthusiastic about? This was it. We even made a promo video for it where I used two tubs of parmesan cheese as a tripod. Honestly some of my best work. Download the cookbook here »
🫵 I want you to Host Better Webinars — Most online events are a complete snoozefest and we want to change that. So Jay Acunzo and I teamed up for a four-part series on how to run webinars people actually want to attend. Jay has been a huge influence on my creative life. I literally started this newsletter while being mentored by him. He’s brilliant and very fun in the chat. Come hang out with us! Watch and sign up here »
