“Have you seen X? It’s sooo good!”
“Umm, no—I haven’t, is it good?
“It’s sooo good, you gotta check it out!”
If I had a dime for how many times I’ve had this mind-numbing conversation, I’d have enough to probably still not afford to pay rent in my area—but I’d be close!
How many good shows and movies are out there right now? 50? 100? Probably more than that depending on how open you are to different genres. In this post, let’s dip our toes into this whole show-FOMO and why it makes us feel some type of way.
What Is the Purpose of Shows?
I wanted to say television shows, but it’s not really TV shows at this point, is it? Netflix, Hulu, Disney Plus, HBO GO/Now or whatever the fuck they’re calling it.
Why do you have to watch these shows? How much entertainment do you need? I normally don’t employ this many questions in writing, but this is going to be one of those articles that is completely funded by confusion.
Here’s the issue, you now have tons of content on demand. It can be streamed whenever you want it to, and it continues to just play the next episode after the current one is wrapping up. They don’t even let you watch the fucking credits anymore. I mean, I didn’t want to, but I don’t appreciate network execs making these decisions for me.
When someone tells you that you absolutely must watch a show, you feel like it’s some kind of goddamn chore. It’s homework, and fuck school, so I ain’t watchin’ that shit. Yet you feel like you’re missing out. You realize most people, your coworkers, your acquaintances, gym regulars, even your family, all have conversations about shows they watch. I’m not bashing this, but it’s clear that the purpose of watching shows is all about that expanded watercooler moment. Having something to discuss so that the silence doesn’t coax out the existential dread that lives in all of us. God help us!
When a show hits a level of popularity like Game of Thrones, it’s not just about the show anymore. Now it’s a cultural event. People sometimes ask things like, “Where were you when 9/11 happened?” or, “when were you when john lenin dies?”
Nowadays, it’s where the fuck were you when the Red Wedding happened?
I was sat at home, of course.
Shows Are Too Long
On one lonesome and particularly boring night, you decide to browse Netflix. You can’t decide what to watch, your queue is 5,000 items long and you’ve hacked away at…none of it. You don’t even want to look at it anymore.
“Hmm, Samantha told me to watch Peaky Blinders, it’s sooo good”
And then you think, ah what the hell? Maybe I’ll check it out. How long is it? Oh, it’s 5 seasons, fantastic. Each episode is one hour long. I know this show has been running for years, but that’s 6 episodes per season, 5 seasons of episodes, and 60 minutes an episode.
5*6*60 = 1800 minutes of runtime. In other words, 30 HOURS of content.
If I sat your ass down in a room, and had you live the life of another man, experience another world for 30 hours, a show would have to be complete DOGSHIT to not have developed an interesting plot by then.
Seriously, if you have 30 hours to play with, is it really that hard to sneak some character development in?
I want to make a serious note here, I’m not necessarily judging. I myself am guilty of watching extremely long, drawn out shows in the form of Shonen anime. Stuff like One Piece and Naruto run all year and their respective studios draw each episode out as much as possible so that they do not catch up to the source material (the manga. See: comic books for azns)
Why is this important? Because if you’ve been watching a show 30 mins at a time for 8 years, when it concludes it’s going to be an emotional moment.
Remember Breaking Bad? The first episode aired on Jan 20, 2008, the finale aired September 29 of 2013. If you’d have been watching that from the get-go, that’s 5-6 years that these characters had a home in your consciousness. You saw their peaks, their valleys, their rise and their fall.
It’s a phenomenal show through and through. Why? Many reasons, the writing, the acting, the setting, the premise. [SPOILER TAG FOR BREAKING BAD] The most important reason though, is that it actually fucking ends. It delivers on a promise that was set up in the first episode. Walt dies, but not before he becomes who he really was all along. He broke bad, and for all of the victories he had in which he could’ve stopped there, he kept going. Heisenberg wasn’t Walter White, Walter White was Heisenberg all along. Protecting his family was just an excuse.
Why does this matter? Because Breaking Bad is the rare show that respects your time. It sets out to do something and it finishes it. There is little if any wasted runtime in Breaking Bad, no meandering plots.
What Shows You Watch is Now Your Personality
That somewhat lengthy section you just perused through can be summed up like this:
- Shows are sooo good, but they’re also sooo long. Hour long episodes are not unusual as well as multiple seasons. If someone watches something through for all 30-40 hours of it, of course they’re going to tell you it’s sooo good. They wouldn’t have the heart to tell you it’s ass after wasting 30 hours of their life on it.
- As the name of the article suggests, there’s so much content to watch and much of it is incredibly long and well produced on top of that but most importantly, many of these shows are legitimately decent if you dig the premise.
Where does that leave us?
Well, unless you’ve got an abundance of time on your hands, you probably only have a couple of hours at most in a day to watch shows. I’d argue for many people, even a couple of hours is a lot. Realistically, if you work full-time, exercise, have some semblance of a social life, have other obligations, you probably have 1-3 hours of time a night to watch something.
Maybe even less if you’re savvy about getting a full night’s sleep.
With an episode of a show being an hour long in many cases, that means that you’d better fucking pick carefully.
And because there’s sooo much shit to watch, you probably won’t end up picking at all. You’ll just default to watching The Office for the four thousandth time because picking is hard and The Office is familiar and comforting. Although, the real reason is that it’s short, you scarcely have to pay attention to it so it can just run on in the background while you veg in and out of existence.
Why do you think so many girls on dating apps talk about The Office?
…wait a minute, why do so many girls talk about The Office on dating apps?
It’s almost like which shows you decide to watch has become a parameter of dating compatibility…nah. That can’t be true, could it?
In all honesty, it’s not that serious. But it’s not entirely untrue either…
What media you consume is a prominent part of relating to people now.
God is dead in the West, people are too busy gluing their eyes to their screens to form IRL communities, and everyone is fucking tired of politics.
It’s 2020 and you’re either with me or against me depending on if you like to spend your nights watching documentaries that are more narratively compelling than they are factually correct. Your move fuckboys and girls.
I think I’ll swipe left.
Permission to Abort
Next time someone tells you that you have to watch something because it’s just sooo good, politely tell them to fuck off.
It’s all really good. It’s all really long. You just
don’t have time for it. You just don’t want to get along with them that
badly.
And that’s really what this is all about, isn’t it? Everyone wants a piece of your time. We all want someone to relate to, we want someone to talk about stuff with.
In the year of our lord, 2020 AN (After Netflix), everyone vies for your time and attention by casually asking you to watch 30 hours of some shit. You know it’s probably good. You know it’s popular. You also know that you just don’t want to do shit anymore. You’re burnt.
At this point, if someone asks you to watch something and you come back a week later and say that you actually watched it, observe their face carefully. It’ll be stuck in awe and amazement (they actually watched it…)
They might even think you’re in love with them and are just trying to get closer.
Maybe you are. But for all of the rest of youse…
I give you permission to abort.
–Aakash.