In the olden days, when certain people wanted to appear superior to everyone else in the room, they’d loudly proclaim, “Oh, but I don’t watch TV.” Usually in the middle of a riveting conversation on the exact hue of Tamara Dey’s lipstick, or something as earth-shatteringly important as that. “TV is filled with such junk, you know,” they’ll sniff.

“Only fit for the hoi polloi.” This cultural phenomenon was brilliantly chronicled by Stuff White People Like a few years ago.

These days, it seems these pompous knobs have migrated elsewhere. I imagine it’s because there are some really good television shows (in America, at least) coming on of late. Saying you don’t watch TV because it’s filled with junk when shows like Boardwalk Empire, The Wire, The Sopranos and Mad Men are showing is like saying you don’t shop at Woolies because all you ever buy are the crap R12 chocolates on the cashier’s counter.

You’re far more likely to hear someone pompously declare, “Oh, I don’t use Facebook/Twitter” these days. If this social media Luddite is younger than, say, 48 years of age, you have my permission to reach over the table and slap them across the face. Nobody should be permitted to be that stupid.

But back to TV. I don’t have one. Well, I do but it only gets the SABC channels and eTV, so I might as well not have one. Because that stuff will rot your brain, china. For me, there’s no point really in getting a DStv package, because I only ever watch sports, BBC World News and Al Jazeera. I can pop around to the pub whenever Arsenal or the Sharks are playing. And South Park is freely available online. Why would I waste money getting satellite TV? For Carte Blanche? Hahaha!

However, my new Joburg friends said to me that by not watching SABC at all, I was missing out on a big part of being South African. I believe they may have said that it’s an important part of being black as well. Obviously I don’t hold any truck with such foolish notions.

But still, I thought it would be interested to find out what the poor are being fed these days. What sort of mindless, cheese-puff eating depths were they being sunk to by hours of dreary crap?

In SABC1 soapies, you’ll be delighted to discover, nobody has a surname. No, really. Is this an attempt to breed some familiarity with these robotic characters? It makes me want to poke out a TV writer’s eye. Also, everyone works for a magazine or an ad agency, and sleeps with their boss. All agency bosses, without exception, vaguely resemble Jabba the Hutt. If you’re in trouble and you’re in Generations, sleeping with someone will make it go away. If you get an STD as a result of this philandering, its fine, you’ll die of cancer before the herpes gets you. But that’s also fine because dying of cancer on a soapie is the nicest way on earth to go. You don’t even lose weight. It’s like getting a vague bout of man flu , and the slipping away quietly at night. All of this made okay by the fact that everyone is dressed by Dolce & Gabbana.

Perhaps feeling a touch of conscience about the lascivious lifestyles shown on their other soapies, SABC1 had Intersexions on, which promised to show that everyone is interlinked with everyone else in this gigantic web of broken hearts and HIV/Aids. By the end of the series, it seemed like everyone was going to get an STD. But not to make light of the message that Intersexions was trying to bring across – I was informed that some people really do live like this.

Certainly one of the most horrible shows on TV is Noot vir Noot, which is the only place on earth I’ve ever seen anyone recite lyrics to a Kurt Darren song. One contestant even knew a Nataniël song. Whoever the hell Nataniël is…

You think that SABC redeems itself just a little by showing Top Gear on SABC3 on Sunday nights. But no, the episodes are ancient. This week they showed the fifth episode of the seventh season, where the Top Gear lads race from Italy to London to deliver a truffle to a restaurant at the top of a tower. That episode was originally aired in 2005. For heaven’s sake, back then Richard Hammond was still in his mid-30s.

If the films showing on eTV are anything to go by, South Africans are still stuck in the 90s.

So, there you go. Next time someone asks you why there are so many poor people in South Africa who seemingly can’t lift themselves out of their circumstances, now you can give them a detailed answer. Happily, after having done the research necessary to pen this column, I may now qualify for an income grant.