Hi everybody. I’m glad that you were all able to make it here today. Now, I know what you’re all wondering. “Why did Max invite us here? Why does he look so sweaty?” Well, I can answer both of those questions right now. You see, I have a confession to make. I’ve begun enjoy awful television. Like, the worst, most poorly written schlock currently airing.

Now, I’m not saying this with pride. But I’m not saying this with shame, either. I’m saying this the same way that I’d tell you that I have brown hair, or white skin. My enjoyment of terrible television is just a single facet of who I am. It doesn’t define me. But at the same time, I’m not going to hide it. If a random man comes up to me in the street and screams, “Do you like shows on The CW?” I’ll scream back, “I do! Wanna hang out later?” And I’ll have made a cool new friend, so who’s laughing now?

You’re probably wondering why I’m telling you all this. Well, first we’re going to need a little thing called context.

Recently, I was thinking about how ashamed people seem to be of their hobbies. Everybody seems to want to be seen as super intelligent and mature, and they don’t want people thinking for even a second that they could like something that’s not commonly considered intelligent. They’re so afraid of other people thinking that they’re not smart that they either stop enjoying their interests, or they end up using different terms to describe what they like so that it seems more mature. Because of this, people end up saying ridiculous things, like that they “don’t like comics, they like graphic novels,” or that they, “don’t like rap, they like hip-hop.” Ignoring that those are both completely valid artistic mediums, people having to use these terms in the first place is ridiculous.

It’s so easy to say that if everybody just stopped being judgemental, that this would end. Unfortunately, it’s not always the judgement of others that keeps people from enjoying their hobbies. When I was a camp counselor, one of my campers was a little bit of a bully. He would make fun of other campers for playing Magic the Gathering, and no matter how many times I tried to get him to stop, he wouldn’t. Then, one night at the fire circle, he pulled me aside, saying that he had a very urgent, and a very private question. He was thirteen, so obviously I prepared for the worst. I still wasn’t fully prepared for what he was about to ask me. He looked up at me, and asked, “Max, is it okay for me to like Pokemon?”

People seem to be afraid of liking childish things, and not just because of the judgement of others. They want to feel mature themselves, so they try to throw anything that they see as childish away. And that’s insane. If you enjoy something, enjoy it, even if it makes you feel a little ridiculous.

So that brings us back to the terrible television that I find so addictive. When I first started watching, one thought kept running through my head. “I shouldn’t be enjoying this as much as I am. I mean, it’s overly dramatic crud on The CW!” But then I realized how much of a hypocrite I was being. So yes, I enjoy awful television, and yes, I don’t care.