I’ve heard this phrase so many times in my life I dont even think about it, but the more I dwell on it, I dont really get it
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“Boob” was/is slang for “stupid person,” so the implication was that watching too much TV would make you stupid
I should add that the “tube” part comes from TVs back then using cathode ray tube (CRT) technology
Oh that makes sense! Where does the tube come from though?
Cathode Ray Tubes. Its how TVs used to work
I am mildly annoyed that kids these days don’t know this. Then I get annoyed at me for getting annoyed - why would they? we haven’t had a CRT in the house since '04. It would be like getting exasperated because us 80s kids didn’t know how to tap out morse code on the telegraph.
It always makes me laugh when old people get mad that they don’t teach cursive in school anymore. Cursive as a writing form is antiquated unless you are using a quill pen or fountain pen. It just doesn’t work as well with ballpoint pens. The funniest argument I see is about how if the kids can’t write cursive, they can’t read the Magna Carta, declaration of independence, or US Constitution. Never mind that they also already can’t read all sorts of foundational documents in other languages, that those documents have been transcribed into other scripts, or that none of those three documents were ever written in cursive in the first place (they’re all calligraphic script)
Heh. yeah. my handwriting in high school and college was so garbage I couldn’t even read my own handwriting, so what good is it really?
Furthermore, why is it so important to read old writing in the original script? Would that really change the meaning any?
TVs used to be a sealed particle accelerator. You should read up on them, it’s fascinating.
My kid refused to believe me when I told him that I grew up with an electron gun in the house that fired accelerated particles at a screen, he stated that simply couldn’t be safe and no one would allow that. I told him that was the 70’s for you
But somehow it was. I think early 50s models leaked radiation or some such which is why there was the whole “don’t sit too close” thing.
Anyway i have 6 CRTs. 2 from the 80s and the rest from the late 90s to 00s.
They’re super neat!
The don’t sit too close part was because kids with bad eyesight would sit closer to the TV, so parents started associating it but reversed cause and effect; they believed that sitting too close made their eyesight worse, which it didn’t
I mean the 50s ones probably did but everything in the 50s was harmful
That makes a lot of sense.
My mom calls it the idiot box. Aptly named, i suppose.
I’ve also heard “squack box” implying it’s a loud obnoxious thing. Conjures up images of the bouncing TV in the Calvin and Hobbes comics
Most definitely!
Also, if you stay up late enough, you might be able to see a boob on some channels. Maybe. When you’re a teenager, you hope. ;)
I believe it’s because watching TV dulls your mind. So it turns you into a “boob” (older term to describe someone who isn’t very smart). Tube obviously refers to the vacuum tube inside older televisions that displayed the images. So boob tube is just saying that the TV turns you into a dumb person lol.
