Orin's survey: the pleasure of mastery
I miss stuff so low-denominator I could watch and know in advance what people were going to say.
Context
Irony as the pleasure of mastery, named from inside. What Orin misses is the comfort of watching from above — knowing in advance, never surprised, never exposed — which the wheelchair-man notates flatly as "Emotions of mastery and control and superiority. And pleasure." That's the ironic stance's secret payoff: safety, the superiority of the one who can't be caught out. But the scene twists it: "The choice, see. It ruins it somehow. With television you were subjected to repetition. The familiarity was inflicted." The ironic pleasure needed the familiarity to be imposed, not chosen — the sneer that feels like control actually depended on not being in control, on being subjected. Irony's mastery revealed as a comfort available only to the captive. (Spectation substance is entertainment-self's; the register point is irony-as-superiority-pleasure.)