Pretty Much Pop #2: Binge Watching

This post con­tin­ues Open Cul­ture’s cura­tion of a new pod­cast series about pop­u­lar media and how (and why) we con­sume it. You may wish to lis­ten to the intro­duc­to­ry episode first.

What counts as binge watch­ing? Why do we do it? Is it bad for us?

Mark, Eri­ca, and Bri­an reveal their watch­ing habits (grow­ing up and now) and mar­vel at crazy-high stats about how much peo­ple watch. We think about what peo­ple get out of this activ­i­ty, what shows work do and don’t taste good in bulk, and whether watch­ing is best done in soli­tary despair or as a bond­ing expe­ri­ence as you waste the pre­cious hours of your life sit­ting next to anoth­er per­son.

We touch on many shows includ­ing The Office, Game of Thrones, Bat­tlestar Galac­ti­ca (by way of Port­landia), Jane the Vir­gin, Pret­ty Lit­tle Liars, Arrow, CSI, and Cher­nobyl (which we’ll devote the whole of Ep. 5 to).

Arti­cles we bring up:

• “Infre­quent­ly Asked Ques­tions: why do we binge-watch?” by Bran­don Bak­er
• “A Crit­i­cal The­o­ry of Binge Watch­ing” by Jake Pitre
• “These are the real caus­es and effects of binge-watch­ing, says sci­ence” by Ken­di Banks

“I like to watch, Eri­ca. I like to watch.”

This episode includes BONUS CONTENT that you can only get by becom­ing a $1+ sup­port­er at patreon.com/prettymuchpop. Pret­ty Much Pop: A Cul­ture Pod­cast is pro­duced by the Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life Pod­cast Net­work.