No, I’m not talking about my dog, my (nonexistent) boyfriend, or philosophy in general. I’m talking about Philo, the television service.
I genuinely cannot imagine my college experience without it — Philo has been a fundamental part of my years here. Sometimes I forget that there are some people unaware of its existence.
In case you didn’t know, Philo is an online TV provider. Pepperdine has hooked up every student with a subscription to Philo Edu. If you go to pepperdine.philo.com, all you have to do is log in with the same info you would use to get onto Courses or WaveNet. Once you’re on, you have the option to record shows or watch live television.
Here’s the catch — it only works if you are on campus wifi. And thus this is my first problem with Philo. It’s super convenient if you live on campus, which I personally do, but it doesn’t work if I’m out of town for Thanksgiving but still want to watch This Is Us before I go to bed. Even further, you could live on campus and it still might not work because Philo gets confused. My roommate, who lives on campus with me, hasn’t been able to use her Philo for the past few months because for some reason it thinks she is off campus, which is not the case.
Other annoying things include the fact that in order to fast forward or rewind, you have to drag the sliding progress bar across the bottom. There aren’t any buttons to jump forward or backward 10 seconds like Netflix, YouTube, and other providers have. It’s also not possible to use the arrow keys to skip, and you can’t even use the spacebar to pause. I mean — it’s 2019, how hard would it be to add those features?
Trying to watch on our tvs has its own host of problems. It becomes so annoying having to hook up our devices to the TV using an HDMI cord. We’re also balling on a budget here! We don’t want to buy the various HDMI cords to fit all of our different computers!
That being said, my roommate and I have a strong love for television. Together we watch everything in the Bachelor franchise, This Is Us, Riverdale, and How To Get Away With Murder. I don’t know what I would do without Philo. There is no other way I would be able to watch those shows live, or even slightly later that night. Some (not all) of those shows are available on Hulu the next day, and it’s just not the same as watching it when it airs! What if I wanted to watch Dancing With The Stars or The Voice? Those are live and I wouldn’t be able to vote for who I wanted.
So, Philo is one of my saviors, but also I am frequently annoyed.
*Cue “i hate u, i love u” by gnash and Olivia O’Brien*