This whole week I have been acting like a crazy person. I got so geared up to watch the season 6 finale of "The Walking Dead" that I was a nervous wreck on Sunday night. Let me just stop here for a second and explain a little bit about how I can be with shows sometimes. I get obsessed. Like, unnaturally obsessed. It has been this way since high school with "Beverly Hills 90210." My best friend and I used to call each other during commercials every Thursday night when the show aired live to talk about what just happened. When Dylan's wife was killed in season 6 we both sobbed and blubbered like we had lost our puppy. It was ridiculous. Then, when "American Idol" was in its heyday, I developed an infatuation with Chris Daughtry and when he was kicked off way too soon, my mother had to call me to make sure I wasn't suicidal. When Clay Aiken lost his season, I would't discuss it for days because I was seeing red. I went through an entire box of tissues during Dr. Green's death on "ER", was inconsolable during the "Lost" finale and threw the remote across the room after season 8 of "Dexter" was over. I'm still fuming over the mess they made of the final season. So, you get the picture right? I am very passionate. I get too attached to characters and I have to constantly remind myself that they are not real people. So when a show I really love disappoints me in some way, I get royally pissed. This is what happened on Sunday. My favorite show ended its season on a major cliff hanger. I have to wait until October to find out what happened and I am NOT happy. So how am I being a crazy person? Well, I have been scouring the internet for fan theories about what happened. I have spent an inordinate amount of time watching videos on youtube and reading articles online. This brings me to the real reason I wanted to write about this - the internet and social media has changed the way we watch TV.
Before the internet, if a show ended on a cliffhanger you just had to wait until next season to find out what happened. There was no such thing as leaked footage or pictures from the set or whole websites dedicated to discussing and analyzing what happened on an episode. Now, there are Instagram photos, twitter posts and Facebook comments "straight from the set" that give away certain details of a show. "Game of Thrones" is a prime example of this. When the actor who played Jon Snow was seen on social media with shorter hair, there was an uproar because fans knew he was legally contracted to keep his hair long as long as he was playing that character. This lead to speculation about his death and it has been a year since season 5 ended on the cliffhanger of his death and people are still talking about it! This would have never happened in the pre-social media era. Back in the day, discussing a show was something you did at work the day after it aired over coffee with your colleagues. It didn't' involve hours of scrutiny. After "The Walking Dead" airs on Sunday nights, I read every review written on the internet, I listen to a podcast breaking down the episode and I pour over fan comments and reactions. It is very time consuming and frankly kind of exhausting. Why am I doing this to myself? Because I can. I guess that's what this has come down to - it is available to us so if you are a fan of a certain show, you can become a little obsessive.
This obsession is also fed by Netflix who started putting out all 12 o 13 episodes of a show all at once creating a society of binge watchers. I bet Websters has added this term into its lexicon in the past couple of years. As early as 5 or 6 years ago binge watching a show was unheard of but Netflix changed all of that so now rather than wait a week to find out what happens to your favorite character, you just wait until the next episode cues up. I have sat for hours watching a good show not even realizing how long I was sitting there. I know this has happened to many, many people. Its kind of embarrassing actually. Never have I felt lazier than when the words, "Are you still watching House of Cards?" pops up on my screen. This means I have watched WAY too many episodes in a row. We are now a culture of fat asses because of this and it has satisfied our "I want it now" society. We've all become a bunch of Veruca Salt's. Someone should stuff me down a garbage chute every time I watch more than 2 episodes of one show at a time. I feel compelled to watch these shows not only because I get addicted but because if its a popular show I have to actively avoid spoilers on the internet. When "Orange is the New Black" came out, I rushed through season 3 because every time I logged into my email, I saw an article giving a clue about what happened in the season finale. Grrrr!!!
Back before the dawn of Netflix, you could tape a certain show if you happened to be out the night it aired but VCR's were unreliable especially if you were trying to set a timer. I remember several times cursing out my VCR because it didn't record my show and there was no way to catch up. How could I miss "Donna Martin graduates???" Now if you miss a show, you can usually get it On Demand or it will re-air before the new episode begins the following week. There really is no excuse for missing it. I think this is a good thing but it certainly takes out a little of the excitement and urgency which to me is part of the entertainment. There used to be a collective way we watched TV. Now it has become so individualized. We watch on our own time and not together but we have built whole internet communities around our communal love of shows so while in some ways TV watching is more individual, in other ways it has made us bond more. My husband is a member of a "Game of Thrones" online community and he not only logs on to discuss the show, but he had found friends there with whom he can share other aspects of his life. It has united people from all over the world and I think that is a beautiful thing. We are also in an age where TV reigns supreme. It used to be that an actor was only a legitimate star if he was in the movies. It was considered career suicide for a movie actor to switch over to TV, now they are creating roles for certain stars. There are thousands of channels, hundreds of original netflix/hulu/amazon shows, millions of ways to sit at home and not socialize. I fear that this new era of awesome television has made us into drones; fat, lazy coach potatoes and that is NOT good. We used to have so much more in our lives than the latest hot show. If nothing good was on tv one night, you did other things - played games, read books, took walks, called a friend. Now there is so much to choose from that we are neglecting other activities in favor of TV watching. It is not a good development and I fight keeping my shows to under 5 at all times. I used to sit and watch food network of HGTV for hours on a gloomy Sunday afternoon but now I'm electing to reading books or listening to podcasts or doing yoga instead but I fear that I am in the minority these days. Almost every social interaction I have involves someone asking, "Did you watch the latest episode of (insert any hundreds of popular shows here)?" I just can't keep up and nor do I want to. I can't become too emotionally invested in too many characters - I will burst. As it is, I will spend the next 6 months obsessing over who Negan killed. It will become a full time job just trying to keep up with all the latest news for every show I watch. Season 6 of "Game of Thrones" starts soon and thus begins a whole new cycle of crazy obsession and if Jon Snow really is dead, there will be hell to pay!
Before the internet, if a show ended on a cliffhanger you just had to wait until next season to find out what happened. There was no such thing as leaked footage or pictures from the set or whole websites dedicated to discussing and analyzing what happened on an episode. Now, there are Instagram photos, twitter posts and Facebook comments "straight from the set" that give away certain details of a show. "Game of Thrones" is a prime example of this. When the actor who played Jon Snow was seen on social media with shorter hair, there was an uproar because fans knew he was legally contracted to keep his hair long as long as he was playing that character. This lead to speculation about his death and it has been a year since season 5 ended on the cliffhanger of his death and people are still talking about it! This would have never happened in the pre-social media era. Back in the day, discussing a show was something you did at work the day after it aired over coffee with your colleagues. It didn't' involve hours of scrutiny. After "The Walking Dead" airs on Sunday nights, I read every review written on the internet, I listen to a podcast breaking down the episode and I pour over fan comments and reactions. It is very time consuming and frankly kind of exhausting. Why am I doing this to myself? Because I can. I guess that's what this has come down to - it is available to us so if you are a fan of a certain show, you can become a little obsessive.
This obsession is also fed by Netflix who started putting out all 12 o 13 episodes of a show all at once creating a society of binge watchers. I bet Websters has added this term into its lexicon in the past couple of years. As early as 5 or 6 years ago binge watching a show was unheard of but Netflix changed all of that so now rather than wait a week to find out what happens to your favorite character, you just wait until the next episode cues up. I have sat for hours watching a good show not even realizing how long I was sitting there. I know this has happened to many, many people. Its kind of embarrassing actually. Never have I felt lazier than when the words, "Are you still watching House of Cards?" pops up on my screen. This means I have watched WAY too many episodes in a row. We are now a culture of fat asses because of this and it has satisfied our "I want it now" society. We've all become a bunch of Veruca Salt's. Someone should stuff me down a garbage chute every time I watch more than 2 episodes of one show at a time. I feel compelled to watch these shows not only because I get addicted but because if its a popular show I have to actively avoid spoilers on the internet. When "Orange is the New Black" came out, I rushed through season 3 because every time I logged into my email, I saw an article giving a clue about what happened in the season finale. Grrrr!!!
Back before the dawn of Netflix, you could tape a certain show if you happened to be out the night it aired but VCR's were unreliable especially if you were trying to set a timer. I remember several times cursing out my VCR because it didn't record my show and there was no way to catch up. How could I miss "Donna Martin graduates???" Now if you miss a show, you can usually get it On Demand or it will re-air before the new episode begins the following week. There really is no excuse for missing it. I think this is a good thing but it certainly takes out a little of the excitement and urgency which to me is part of the entertainment. There used to be a collective way we watched TV. Now it has become so individualized. We watch on our own time and not together but we have built whole internet communities around our communal love of shows so while in some ways TV watching is more individual, in other ways it has made us bond more. My husband is a member of a "Game of Thrones" online community and he not only logs on to discuss the show, but he had found friends there with whom he can share other aspects of his life. It has united people from all over the world and I think that is a beautiful thing. We are also in an age where TV reigns supreme. It used to be that an actor was only a legitimate star if he was in the movies. It was considered career suicide for a movie actor to switch over to TV, now they are creating roles for certain stars. There are thousands of channels, hundreds of original netflix/hulu/amazon shows, millions of ways to sit at home and not socialize. I fear that this new era of awesome television has made us into drones; fat, lazy coach potatoes and that is NOT good. We used to have so much more in our lives than the latest hot show. If nothing good was on tv one night, you did other things - played games, read books, took walks, called a friend. Now there is so much to choose from that we are neglecting other activities in favor of TV watching. It is not a good development and I fight keeping my shows to under 5 at all times. I used to sit and watch food network of HGTV for hours on a gloomy Sunday afternoon but now I'm electing to reading books or listening to podcasts or doing yoga instead but I fear that I am in the minority these days. Almost every social interaction I have involves someone asking, "Did you watch the latest episode of (insert any hundreds of popular shows here)?" I just can't keep up and nor do I want to. I can't become too emotionally invested in too many characters - I will burst. As it is, I will spend the next 6 months obsessing over who Negan killed. It will become a full time job just trying to keep up with all the latest news for every show I watch. Season 6 of "Game of Thrones" starts soon and thus begins a whole new cycle of crazy obsession and if Jon Snow really is dead, there will be hell to pay!
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