Most people have a dilemma when they start watching a new series; they just can’t stop pressing “Next,” some people don’t even realize that they’ve finished the whole season, skipped a solid eight hours of sleep, and ate an entire barrel of cheese balls.
However, when people can’t stop themselves from binge-watching, I have a different problem; it seems that I can’t even start binge-watching, especially in just one go, and I’m not trying to say this because I wanna be unique.
Having that same level of patience is like a double-edged sword; it’s a trait that I’d love to obtain, but in the end, it never got me anywhere other than knowing a story told. But, on the other hand, I have friends that finished Attack on Titan in just a couple of days, completed the manga (comics) in a jiffy, binged Clone Wars in just one go, and even one who watches shows twice, once with himself and another with me.
The list of shows I’ve watched has always been… sparse. Growing up, I seemed to be a pretty close-minded and picky guy when it comes to things. Before Quarantine, I binged the Disney show Gravity Falls as a kid; I finished the comedy The Office twice, I’ve binged Money Heist, and I’ve watched every Marvel movie in the new cinematic universe, along with the new Disney+ series. So, as you can see, not only do I lack a concise taste in shows, but also that I can do it. End of the story, right? Wrong.
As of writing this, I’m currently on my summer vacation and had a promise to myself to binge-watch as many shows as possible, mainly the Japanese anime my friends recommended. However, the sudden abundance of time in my hands also came with another worry, the fear of wasting it, so I resorted to trying to multitask, like listening to music while cleaning or writing an article while walking around my place. Binge-watching shows restrict me from multitasking, especially anime where I prefer the original Japanese dub; I can’t just look away and expect to understand what’s going on.
But at the same time, the need for multitasking leads to doing things in a mediocre fashion, sure I’ve done two things at once, but at worse, I never paid attention to anything that I’ve done. I become easily distracted; I never do what I feel satisfied in doing, and binge-watching shows just aren’t one of them.
One of the solutions I have is to host watch parties, like watch a whole season with friends, and in a way, spending time with friends and possibly finishing an episode or two is hitting two birds with one stone. Sometimes if my friends aren’t interested or unavailable, I simply try to watch something myself, but I often don’t go through with my own commitment and only end it after an episode or two.
A blog post from the website Free Drove, which was about the author not being a binge-watcher, gave me a different but relatable point of view regarding this, almost justifying that I can’t binge-watch either.
In the post, they express how they’d rather take time and let the events on a show sink in:
“It also helps that I don’t really have the time, so it’s not all premeditated moderation — I’m certainly no monk when it comes to willpower.”
“If I were to cram a bunch of episodes into my brain, I wouldn’t be able to remember as much.”
- Sapling of FreeDrove.com
I relate a lot to the blog post in many ways, and I find it pretty weird how what’s considered normal is now binging hours of stream-able content non-stop. In the end, I still understand and appreciate the leisure of watching shows; they convey a story, a scenario that might inspire, or influence, or just help one along the way.
There’s nothing wrong with binge-watching shows, except when you skip sleep, really. It’s this desire to start an idea and feel interested enough to finish it. I admire those types of people. I honestly don’t want to end up defeated and say I can’t do something like that though, maybe I’m not a goal-oriented person, maybe it’s my ADHD on the way, or perhaps I just don’t feel like investing my time at all.
