I think that I have recently discovered something about myself and decided that this personal revelation needed to be shared. I might hate binge watching television shows. Now, I don't know where to place this opinion, at which end of the spectrum it fits. I think it may rest somewhere in the minority. For that reason let me expand from here and better define this idea. Thanks to streaming services like Netflix an almost absurd amount of content waits patiently to be tapped upon and activated. Overall this is an amazing thing! With all this content so easily reachable movies or shows have the ability to reach audiences that their creators may have never have hoped to reach before. The whole internet has helped with this dispersal of content which is absolutely fantastic. The easier to access these things the more likely that more obscure creators can get their content to all people, which is something I support. I believe strongly in trying to experience all the varied forms of storytelling that exist out there and any service that will allow me to savor these different flavors of film and television gets all my praise.
With that understood let's move to where my contention lies with the act of binge watching. Recently released on Netflix were two different series which I was waiting for rather eagerly. These are Luke Cage and Black Mirror. I need to admit something here folks, I haven't finished watching Luke Cage yet. It's been out for what seems like awhile now and I haven't finished it. It's not because I didn't like it, no I have found it to be pretty enjoyable actually, but I've been watching the episodes one to a week since the show released in September. As for Black Mirror, there's no way that I could sit and watch all of those in one sitting or even just two or three. See,what trouble I have with binge watching is that the whole process is so condensed. Filling a short period with so much content I feel to be unfair to those people that made the things that we watch. I personally don't know if people are still talking about Luke Cage anymore. I know that the people I know aren't anymore and it's only November. The show was released not but about a month ago. How can a show just disappear like that? Now, I understand that not all shows that are made are intended to be long pondering things, some content is intended to be lighter, but even so, does that mean pouring through something so quickly provides the same kind of experience as going just one episode at a time? I don't think that it does. I feel that when binging through a show that there has to be some loss of content some aspect of enjoyment that can't be found when the whole experience is over within a day or two.
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What binge watching provides is a feeling of instant gratification and I think a little more serious a feeling of numbness. I don't want to sound overdramatic with this, but when a person watches a show one episode bleeding into the next what space is there for thought? The act of binge watching doesn't allow for space to breath. A show on television I'm enjoying the heck out of right now is WestWorld. Once a week I enter into this world of robot cowboys and am offered a glimpse at the lives of those characters who live there, who live their lives in that world. If it is the job of television to create stories that are real, to populate worlds with characters derived from thoughts who feel of flesh and act like they were born from reality then shouldn't there be some act reciprocal to that? I mean to say that it's a rude thing to rush through a story which was created with care just to sate a lust to see what happens at the end. By doing so a person risks passing over character and thought and little details. When provided with breathing space, with the addition of time a show, the stories we choose to watch, are given a chance to grow and evolve. I have had such a fun time theorizing with friends over what this could mean or is that foreshadowing and what have you. In the space of the binge where is there room for that, where is there a chance for a story to grow not on the screen, but in the minds of the viewer? I don't believe that there is. If any of this sounded appealing might I suggest taking a break from binge watching with me and we can see how it works out.
