Amidst all our modern-day problems, everyone is familiar with the notion of feeling burnt out or needing a reassuring distraction. It’s in these moments that we reach for something familiar and easy we know will bring us comfort. And we know this because it will because we’ve seen it before. This is my definition of what it is to participate in comfort watching; to watch an old favourite on repeat that you know you can relate to when everything else seems too much.
But here’s my theory as to why we do it; it comes back to our relationship with ourselves. We need to be reassured we know who we are in those moments of distress or fatigue. In times when our focus is pulled to challenging aspects of life, and away from ourselves, we need something to help return us to our sense of self.
Like Jean Paul Sartre says, “man is nothing else but what he makes of himself.” If we can reconnect to something, we know we relate to, we can realign ourselves with our past selves when we feel unsure of it.
Comfort watching may not be a new phenomenon, but it certainly has become more popular with the advent of streaming; making it easy to watch your favourite show whenever you want. But I think it’s rise in popularity is more complicated than that. Because people are faced with so much choice, it can become overwhelming and people often revert back to an easy choice, something they know. Additionally, and what I’m most interested in, is the rise of pressure and stress of the current age (such as a more competitive work force, rise in house prices, a freaking pandemic, etc.). It is undeniable that overall mental health is in decline. People are more likely to look to media to be comforted instead of entertained because that’s what they need at the end of the day.
This is not a normal way to consume media. We are not seeking it out purely for entertainment, as is traditional.
It’s so unusual that The University of Bamberg conducted a study into the role of impulsivity and depressive symptoms as a source for binge watching behaviour. Their study cast people who indulge in this kind of viewing as having a problem, much like a drug addiction: “problematic binge-watching might share with substance related or behavioural addictions, for example, loss of control over watching, neglect of other activities and watching to cope with negative emotions.” I could argue here that this study has started from a place of prejudging the source of behaviour. Interestingly though they also go on to say, “binge-watchers compared to non-binge watchers reported to be less open and less agreeable.” Whether this is a personality trait that is caused by binge-watching, or resulting in it is unclear, but from this we can start to see a link between the state a person may be in as they turn to a known source of comfort.
Another study from Syracuse University endeavoured to explore the specific relationship between the viewer and the programme they are watching. Concluding that “the effect of binge watching on viewer reception is contingent on the show. Results also revealed that binge watching better delivers an escape gratification for viewers than appointment watching.” That latter statement interestingly points to the fact that viewers are more satisfied with this mode of viewing, rather than the historically traditional practice of tuning in when a programme is scheduled. They continue to explain: “behaviour and selection is motivated and functional, and people filter through competing media to consume what most gratifies their needs and desires… ‘expectation about content formed in advance of exposure’ and gratifications obtained is the ‘satisfaction subsequently secured from consumption of it’. By clarifying the difference between what we expect from media effects our subsequent satisfaction from it, she makes the case that the most satisfying source is one we know will satisfy you, because it’s done so before.
To figure out this relationship we must first uncover why we seek it out in the first place.
Simone de Beauvoir examines the freedom of choice everyone possesses as a being, in her essay The Ethics of Ambiguity. Her take on giving up our own freedom is to revert to a childlike state. She claims that man "gets rid of his freedom by claiming to subordinate it to values which would be unconditioned". She cites various states of man as they progress into and through adulthood as refusing to recognise that they are free. They look to others to show them their own values.
In our modern world, this statement needs an update. I argue it is no longer a case of refusing to acknowledge our freedom, it is a blatant refusal of freedom. Our freedom can often feel so vast in the endless choice of 21st century life, it is too overwhelming even to choose what to watch. We have reached the point where giving up our freedom, in a safe way, has become a comforting option. A relief.
But that relief can only come in the choosing, or lack thereof. As Beauvoir goes on to say “There is no way for a man to escape this world. It is in this world that… he must realize himself morally. Freedom must project itself toward its own reality through a content whose value it establishes.”. If there is no way to escape, then in moments when we want to, we must find a way to be ok with ourselves and our present situation.
This brings me to my hypothesis of why rewatching old favourites again and again is so comforting. If we have lost our knowledge of what makes us, us when we are distressed then looking to forms of art can remind us of those truths.
There seems to be two separate pathways to comfort or binge watching. One is to avoid your daily responsibilities and turn to others you are familiar with to see how they go about life; the other is to remind yourself of the past version of you that enjoys this show, much like a recalibration. If we currently don’t like the world we are being in, we look to another world we know we are comfortable being in, to be in for a while. And through being with other people we know we relate to we remember what it is to be ourselves.