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Actually, We All Have Lots of Great Memories From Watching TV as Kids, Thank You Very Much

A child sits with a teddy bear watching television as the starship enterprise and celestial images hover around them

People are sharing all their best childhood memories of watching television in response to what appears to be an Instagram post claiming whose memories don’t actually exist.

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The image is peak White Woman’s Instagram material: A well-coiffed woman toting three beautiful children into the woods, holding a sign reading “Into the woods we go because kids won’t remember their best day of television.” The picture has been making the rounds on Twitter thanks to a user going by @false_rumors who captioned it with the entirely accurate statement “feel like this is 100% untrue.”

The context of the picture isn’t entirely clear. The poster of the original tweet said it was “a share of a share” that might actually be an advertisement. So even setting aside the glaring hypocrisy of shaming kids (and by extension, their parents) for spending too much time looking at screens while staging a full influencer-style Instagram post complete with a giant café-style letter board, the message is just plain wrong.

It’s also woefully pernicious. The idea that “kids won’t remember their best day of television” is the kind of platitude you can find all over Facebook, Pinterest, and parent blogs.

A collection of memes reading "Kids won't remember their best day of television"

images: Google

This is a great reminder that just because you can meme something, that doesn’t make it true. People have been sharing their memories of their best day of television as a kid, and how are you going to argue that these aren’t important childhood memories?

This isn’t even an indoor vs. outdoor kid argument. You might have been a diehard summer camp/hiking/camping/nature enthusiast growing up, and if you are or want to be a parent you could hope the same for your kids. But let’s not pretend that television doesn’t have the power to create strong, lasting memories.

(image: Jeanne Masar on VisualHunt)

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Author
Vivian Kane
Vivian Kane (she/her) is the Senior News Editor at The Mary Sue, where she's been writing about politics and entertainment (and all the ways in which the two overlap) since the dark days of late 2016. Born in San Francisco and radicalized in Los Angeles, she now lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where she gets to put her MFA to use covering the local theatre scene. She is the co-owner of The Pitch, Kansas City’s alt news and culture magazine, alongside her husband, Brock Wilbur, with whom she also shares many cats.

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