On Friday evening, freshly traumatized from back-to-back meetings that should have been conducted over Zoom, coworkers who relentlessly yapped without understanding competence, I took my seat on my couch couch to enjoy what should have been passive activity: mindlessly watching TV. I didn’t think I’d just be watching TV though—I planned to sit back, relax, and zone out. Two hours later, I was channel surfing, having forgotten what I had initially ordered for dinner halfway through.
Rather than choosing Business Plan Culinary School, I had opted for decision-making alternative lifestyle: browsing shows.
Decisionscrap
“I could watch literally anything.” The internet lied to me. It’s obvious that I’ve always favored guitar tabs from the past.
“You’ll have endless choices with no boundaries to limit you.” Sure, they aren’t wrong. But quickly you realize that their version of “limitless” means wallowing in bland choices. My watchlist has me missing life as I knew it.
International documentaries I’ll never finish turn me into worldly individual well versed on topics I didn’t know I knew about. Shows that have been praised worldwide cause me to question if I even know a fraction about another culture. Not to mention classic shows everyone brags about for memes, and for some reason, I’ve never watched.
I tune into past glares as I scroll for the seventh time to Friends. I’m aware that my friend Michelle has a spreadsheet- herself proclaimed TV nerd-extraordinaire- keeps track of shows she’s watched. A freaking spreadsheet.
For TV shows. She has categories of colors to depict show type, analyzes shows with color-coded columns, and keeps record of who, in our friend group, recommended each show. When Michelle whipped this spreadsheet out at brunch, I nearly died on my $17 avocado toast.
“It helps me stay on top of things,” she said as if boasting that she had insider secrets on how to watch TV was akin to her knowing nuclear missile codes. Sure, she included notes on who recommended what show next to her color coded fantasia by show category. It was insane enough when she told me she scheduled times in her calendar.
“Omani Youtube dramas on Thursday 8-10!” Are you entertained by this? Or does this sound like homework? Anyways, I knew in that instant I wanted nothing to do with her.
I felt bad for the friend I was with hoping and praying that she too wasn’t expected to some weirdo scheduling rules when trying to have fun. But she was too quick for her ownalgorithm did someone say therapy? Apparently, Psychologists had cooked up there intern came up with a solution.
Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones were so popular, she presumed I would be one of the millions of people using school as an excuse to binge watch television. I told her I am nowhere near that person. She replied with a suppressed giggle.
What came so easily to me question of her ways was how she systematically watches TV. By laying on her couch or chair (seat possess wheels) and by pure luck letting the remote take her through rows of shows until, and this is the fun part, she reaches a point where her eyes can no longer process the perfectly curated shows or she falls asleep. Whichever comes first.
She then offered me advice. Completely overwhelming me with recommendations that were hyper-fixated on helping me avoid choice. Everything ranged from low quality troll picks to high-brow shows that she thought I’d enjoy based on my “refined” taste.
Watching Penguin Documentary makes her now terrifyingly recommend Breaking Bad because it’s in the “dark, crime-ish showing sadEmotional stories about small town pies.” Pie? My encounters with these tight spaces have become an attack show. Even though it doesn’t understand me algorithms try to keep me hostage anyway.
Watching TV is confusing as all hell. As of right now, I have 94 shows on my watchlist. 94.
That is an embarrassing number if you take into consideration that I watch about three hours of TV max a week. That’s nearly seven years worth of shows—if I never added more shows to my list. However, it seems as though I add to the bucket list every week—not shows to travel to, but show reviews consume my nights.
I’ll read all of the reviews, watch the preview, and check out the show’s rating on IMDb, rotten tomatoes, and meta. Finally, I’ll watch one episode before I realize that I’m not in the mood, and decide to watch Friends instead. Oops!
Turns out I was already halfway through season. There I went again, letting two hours of my life slip through my fingers just to watch 20 minutes of television. If I was that invested in my career I’d probably be talking to you from my mansion.
Although I do love a good stressed-cramming by myself. Social outings have become dreadful. I’ve caught myself losing arguments with friends over my “favorite part” of “the show.” Don’t get me wrong, we all know the show I’m talking about.
Hashtag playlists literally ruined society. Am I wrong for not know what they’re talking about? Or don’t I know because I haven’t watched the show?
Why do they keep #PopularShowAThathon as a hashtag? If I decide not to watch that show do I not get to hang with the kids? My coworker Rob cornered me at the coffee machine the other day and decided to enthusiastically express how..
astoundingly shocked he was that I had never seen such a mesmerizing show based around restaurants. “You HAVE to watch it.” He said as passionately as I would if someone’s life depended on them getting knee surgery instead of watching a series about people cooking food. When I asked him what makes it so good?
He quite shockingly responded with “You just HAVE to watch it! The added psychology along with attention to historical accuracy is PERFECTION.” Still on my watchlist. Friends friends, let me tell you what decision depression feels like.
As we speak I’m wondering if I should take the leap and order a new couch to go along with my mounting pile of work and tax documents. My routine typically consists of browsing through shows and picking the first thing I see that was written by someone I vaguely remember reading in high school. As the family trip planner, my nights consisted of streaming into one primal tan chair smoking Iliosura.
I never have a process. Let me smoke out the act of reading loglines as if they’re the CIA interrogating me on TV shows I don’t want to watch. I want to binge watch shows, not Netflix rabbit holes through weird ass documents trying to find shows that may or may not even exist.
Avoiding choice is why I never want to leave binge-watching. That way I can pretend that reading about what a BBC nature documentary is will give me the same satisfaction as ripping off the band-aid of clinging to rules about how television needs to be consumed. To me, binge watching means freedom from time.
It’s why the casual TV watcher from passively consuming what’s in front of them like it’s some underground crime, not popular sitcoms with celebrity actors pretending to do a show based off reality competitions. My neighbor Tom has zero preferences in life and has seriously helped me overcome my binge watching problems by watching an entire series, start to finish, before moving on to the next. I had decided to ask him one day how on earth he chooses what TV shows to…decide on.
Tom looked ready to give me the wife saver. “I just pick one that looks good.” Thank you, Tom Goldwyn, for teaching me how to live my life. As I’ve been trapped inside this bubble of new-age tv— aka decision anxiety — for far too long, I never realized that streaming platforms have completely skewed our perception of time.
Mind. Blown: telling myself I’ll “watch one episode” is the equivalent of telling yourself you’ll “just have one chip.” Translation: a shit lie that will have only the fortunate avoid visiting the hospital. Maybe there is a bright side to all of this.
As TV watching evolves from a leisure activity you partake in, to the creepy friend that texts you every other hour asking if you’re ‘still watching’ we could be entering a new era of apocalyptic doom where every minute of our lives are based on a tv show balance. Netflix and friends are killing it. We live in the reason why television switched to releasing entire seasons at once, so we can mindlessly churn through programming rather than enjoying television at a peaceful, calm, and civilized pace of weekly episodes.
“Don’t talk about the end of [insert popular show] because Bob hasn’t seen it yet.” Everyone was about to sit at the table when the host of the dinner party yelled. Bob replied that he was “only on episode 12.” Everyone gasped as if he murdered his mother. When did staying on top of TV shows become a thing?
Every second I go watching. Friends Friends constantly tell me about how much they don’t like shows, yet swear that I would like those way more than what I’m currently watching. Show scandals come to my attention about the “can’t miss!” Laura Linney movie on STARZ, and suddenly I’ll find it on my watchlist because I’m too scared someone will think I’m dumb.
Streaming services yell at me from every Tv commercial they put on their network about how much I’ll love their new programs just as much as I loved the ones I used to. Spoiler alert: I don’t. I’ll be right here, on my couch, lazily picking away at the remote thinking about when I’ll have the time to “watch” all of these TV shows.
It’s like I know the answer myself.
We’ve been living in the greatest years of “streaming” TV. Also I’ve accepted that I’ve been binge-watching way too much TV.
I freely… or should I say blindly? Eyes glazed?.. explore windows into these magical worlds, expanding my horizons.
Watch The Office for the hundredth time.
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