Hinton: Home shopping one true constancy in a sea of trashy TV

My relationship with QVC and the Home Shopping Network has always been one of subtle animosity…. My relationship with QVC and the Home Shopping Network has always been one of subtle animosity. Like a pair of mutual ex-boyfriends, we tolerate each other when together. Apart, we make biting remarks about the other’s inanity and doubt that the same person could love us both. If this conceit sounds a bit stretched, let me assure you it is only because years of silent aggression have forged a very complex hatred between television merchants and me. Truthfully, I doubt that they reciprocate this lukewarm disdain, but would they ever if they knew how often I made fun of a host’s hairline, how frequently I parodied their empty ramblings about camcorders that become decorative chickens or how violently I criticized their three-hour paeans to consumerism, which they dare to call ‘specials.’ No, the good name of Hinton should rightly be spat upon and dragged through the mud by every QVC video jockey and HSN barker. The delicate pas-de-deux between these stations and myself would carry on just fine were I not forced to endure so very much QVC when I came home for holidays. My parents do not necessarily enjoy those plastic-faced trinket hawkers; home shopping just happens to be a very neutral background noise during our fever-pitched board gaming sessions. When we’re not gaming, conversation is just that much easier with a television flickering in the background. QVC is somewhat like a pastel-colored digital fireplace distracting our periphery just enough to smooth over any gaps in thought or dialogue. Rather than my normal seething, though, I set out over this break to determine why home shopping is so popular ‘mdash; not the act of shopping itself, but why so many televisions are permanently tuned to a loop of QVC. I refuse to believe that the success of home shopping might be linked to the quality or prices of home-shopping networks’ products. These networks feature offerings such as pre-made chicken and dumplings that cost $11 in shipping and handling alone to be dry ice-ferreted to your front door. What possibly could inspire anyone, even the most reluctant cook, to order such a product in lieu of simply stepping outside and going to a restaurant or calling his local grocer? Other times I’ve seen QVC advertise sweaters with hens appliqued to them. I grew up in the backwater of York County, and I can assure you that rural folk are every bit as sensible in their fashion choices when it comes to turning away applique. There is a universal quorum on the matter. No, there is something deeper to home shopping. QVC and HSN survive because of something like an existential constancy. If one turns on any other channel, he is likely to find syndication of shows from years ago, programming that has long since jumped the shark or serials that were never very good to begin with. Television is very much a muddied collection of pilots and finales, special episodes and guest stars. Struggling to capture the attention of capricious audiences, networks are forced to court that coquette Nielsen and his ratings through elaborate flourishes of dynamic programming: incessantly killing off characters, bringing in celebrities, plot-twisting the night away and layering on impenetrable back story. With most series, if you miss one episode you might as well just give it up, as the curve to get back on is too steep. However, amid all this commotion, home shopping charts a steady course. The most gradual of changes in product lines mask the passage of time. Hosts are retained for decades. You could set your watch by the programming. At any time you can tune in and pick up right where you left off. You might have missed a few sterling silver onyx chokers, but the current is welcoming ‘mdash; two more hours of Black Hills Gold. Furthermore, home shopping offers a gentle reminder that other people actually do exist. Most television bears no traces of connection to the outside world other than a timely reference here and there. Sure, the news is a much more direct link to civilization, at large, but it is rarely an index of the vitality of the world as much as it is a testament to the new ways people have found to die and kill one another. QVC, however, happily chugs along, touting human inventiveness. ‘An egg timer shaped like Barack Obama?’ Yes, man hasn’t lost his touch since figuring out fire and the wheel. Moreover, folks are always calling in to talk about their lives actually improving, saying things like, ‘I made my husband happy for the first time in years with a GPS unit!’ Home shopping succeeds because it announces a happy consistency. Although thoroughly spineless, QVC and HSN anchor viewers in a firm communion with mankind. It is a fellowship of buying stuff, but a fellowship nevertheless. E-mail Erik at ech15@pitt.edu.