Why I'm Not Watching the Winter Olympics

I'm not going to watch the Winter Olympics on television.

A big reason is that I don't have television. Or at least cable TV. I don't get NBC, the network carrying the Winter Olympics.

I gave up on television in 2008, a good decision for me. I'm not saying everyone should do it. You have to be a bit of a misanthrope. I'm not going to linger over that issue here. It always sounds like bragging anyway, when it's just a lifestyle choice. I still have Amazon Prime, Netflix in the last month, and watch YouTube Shorts. And hockey on ESPN+ on my big desktop screen.

I could have TV if I wanted it, of course. I even would if I wanted just to watch the Winter Olympics. I'd subscribe to the NBC's Winter Olympics via their streaming service, Peacock, or Fubo TV or Sling TV maybe or some similar bundler who carries them (if they are, not sure).

But to the point, I'm not watching the Winter Olympics on purpose.

A big reason is China's human rights abuses. They're not slowing down and no one is really trying to stop them. I'm not pretending I am either. I'm nothing really. 

With that is NBC's ignoring these abuses for the sake of profits, and other corporate sponsors doing the same.

The official worldwide partners of the Olympics are Airbnb, Alibaba, Allianz, Atos, Bridgestone, Coca-Cola, Intel, Omega, Panasonic, Procter & Gamble, Samsung, Toyota, and Visa.

Of course I'm not perfect on this. I have a couple of Visa cards I'm not getting rid of. I think my laptop has an Intel chip and my next laptop likely will as well. I may drink a couple of Diet Cokes in the next couple of years, though vastly fewer than I once did. Proctor & Gamble probably makes more of what I buy--soap and toothpaste and whatnot--than what I'm aware of.

But I'm not going to be an easy chump.

I'm also not going to acquiesce to the vast and obvious corruption of the IOC (International Olympic Committee), who seems to no longer know any bounds of vice and corruption. A couple of weeks ago I read about their requirements for cities hoping to host a winter or summer games, and it actually included the requirement that the host city provide a separate lane on their streets for the use of only Olympic officials for travel between Olympic venues.

These people think they are fucking royalty.

This kind of thing, plus all the horrendous, seemingly constant bribery that takes place to garner the right to host the Olympics in a certain country, are just revolting. 

It's now all politics, ideology, nationalism, marketing, corporatism -- a perfect blend of a 21st-century dystopian novel in the making, come to real life. As if nothing else were ever possible, as if nothing else could have ever even come to pass.

Yes, the athletes worked hard to get there. I'm sorry, I can't satisfy everyone, they'll be fine.

So I'm just going to stay home and suffer the pandemic, suffer cabin fever and gray Oregonian skies, watch hockey, read too late, chat too late, blog too late, watch Amazon Prime and Netflix too late and fall asleep too early. Daylight Savings Time starts on March 13th. Maybe then it's OK to poke my head up and start looking around again. If not I'll hunker down some more with my cat and we'll stay here until god damn summer if we have to, I swear, and I just might hold my breath until then too.