Why Do Many Artists Claim to Not Watch Television?

As an artist who started her degree majoring in Film, I'm a person who unashamedly watches film and television regularly. In my earlier years of my degree I experienced burnout so relaxing to a couple of episodes of friends here and there is part of my relaxation routine. However spending a lot of time in Visual Arts Academia and working in Galleries I have found that there are a lot of artists that do not consider an episode of Seinfeld as a daily occurrence in their life. At first it might seem like its that mainstream culture might not be applicable to many artists life and work but as a person who loved film theory and still watch episodes of The Take (A Youtube channel that breaks down film and mainstream culture), I think there may be another possible answer to this question.

My theory is that it's The Artist Trope and Weird Girl Tropes in film and television. For example Phoebe Buffay on Friends is an artsy quirky type who is concerned about worldly issues and is highly spiritual but in friends she is often characterised as a ditz and her music and creativity is often laughed at. Although she is a very celebrated character and is in a sitcom, artists often get characterised as weird, flaky and totally out of touch with reality further estranging is from mainstream culture. Another example is Faye on Frasier, Marty Crane calls her a flake and on a later episode her creativity is made to be crazy, impulsive and antisocial when she cuts her hair, stuffs it in pillows and howls at the moon. Artists aren't normally in on the joke and often become the butt of the joke, even Kramer is labelled as a 'Hipster Doofus' The reality is that we are underrepresented in shows, movies and mainstream culture and the only ways we are represented is for joke or novelty.

Then there was the counter culture of hipsters that to a degree was supposed to make artists more included in the mainstream only to backfire and make being an artist seem like a fading trend rather than a real profession, due the same amount of respect as other professions receive. As a result many artists choose to live outside the mainstream because of the lack of inclusiveness it has. As for me, I am one of the artists that choose to belong wherever I like (similiar to Phoebe Buffay) I didn't fit in high school yet I stayed not truly caring what others thought of me and as a result I had many friends gravitate toward me because they too didn't fit in and together we were able to be more comfortable being ourselves. As an artist I create works about the mainstream, critiquing it and trying to make sense of it. Although I still find myself having to defend my career, I am continuing keeping involved in both the mainstream and the art world to better inform my work and my ability to socialise with others. Maybe some day artists may be better represented and respected by the mainstream, we can only strive for this to happen as long as we carve out our own representation despite the mainstream exclusion.