In the How I Met Your Mother episode from 2009 titled "Benefits" Marshall (Jason Segel) is embarrassed by carrying a magazine down the hall at work as he walks to the men's room, feeling the judging eyes of his co-workers and imagining them thinking poorly of him for what he's about to do while reading that magazine in their shared restroom.
Such is his shame that he goes by Ted and Robin's apartment (he still has a key from when he and Ted (Josh Radnor) were roommates) instead.
When Robin (Cobie Smulders) confronts him about coming in to their apartment for this purpose, suggesting that he could simply not read a magazine during that time, he offers as a rebuttal that one must read a magazine then, as that's the reason why there are magazines; otherwise, Ted chimes in, it's "just time you're not getting back."
Watching this episode now (as HIMYM is shown regularly in syndication), I find myself thinking: As we get more and more into the era of smart phones, with their games and wireless access, it seems as though the notion of carrying a physical magazine for the purposes of having something to occupy one's time during that period of "reading a magazine" will become silly. Carrying a magazine will not bring shame because it's announcing one is about to "drop a deuce" but because it's telling others that one does not have a device that fits in one's pocket that could fulfill that role.
I can already envision having to explain that syndicated episode to future generations. And failing.
It'll be a poopie task.
When Robin (Cobie Smulders) confronts him about coming in to their apartment for this purpose, suggesting that he could simply not read a magazine during that time, he offers as a rebuttal that one must read a magazine then, as that's the reason why there are magazines; otherwise, Ted chimes in, it's "just time you're not getting back."
Watching this episode now (as HIMYM is shown regularly in syndication), I find myself thinking: As we get more and more into the era of smart phones, with their games and wireless access, it seems as though the notion of carrying a physical magazine for the purposes of having something to occupy one's time during that period of "reading a magazine" will become silly. Carrying a magazine will not bring shame because it's announcing one is about to "drop a deuce" but because it's telling others that one does not have a device that fits in one's pocket that could fulfill that role.
I can already envision having to explain that syndicated episode to future generations. And failing.
It'll be a poopie task.
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