Fun, Reviews, & Vicarious Living
I. Fun Equation & Reviews
People are always looking for new and exciting things to do with their free time, but the reason most people do the same things every week is because they want to maximize the amount of fun they have in their free time.
I believe it’s a simple equation:
The amount of fun you have is determined by whatever you do in your free time. In the equation below Free-time is a constant and Activity is a collection of variables multiplied together.
Activity = What You Do * Who You Are With * Cost of Activity
and
Fun = Activity * Free-time
Because people have little free time and want to have the most fun, they are more inclined to choose an Activity that they consider the most enjoyable for them in whatever block of free-time. People are more inclined to go to the same bars, restaurants, and do the same things because they already know the value of Fun they get from these activities.
So let’s consider Free-time is always 1.
When Activity = Dinner at ShakeShack = 13
Fun = 13 = 13 * 1
When Activity = Drinking With Friends at Tao Downtown = 17
Fun = 17 = 17 * 1
When Activity = Netflix On The Couch = 40
Fun = 40 = 40 * 1
When Activity = Unknown Activity = X
Fun = ? = X * 1
People are hesitant to try new things in their free time because they are unsure of how high a value the Activity might have and ultimately how much fun they will have in their precious free-time. There is no worse feeling than going out, spending a bunch of money, and coming back home thinking you just wasted your time and resources.
That is why people use word of mouth recommendations, reviews, and ratings to determine whether the Activity is worth it for them while gauging the aforementioned means of gathering information with a descending order of accuracy.
Word of Mouth > Reviews > Ratings
When your best friend recommends something for you to do, you’ll most likely do it because you both will probably have similar tastes. When you read a good review about a place from a critic you enjoy, you’ll probably try it out because you find that the critic or tastemaker’s values align with your own. When you see a rating that’s not a Zagat rating or Michelin star, you are a bit more hesitant to try it out because everyone and their mother can leave a rating and who is to say that the majority of these peoples tastes align with your own. Most people will want to read a few reviews after seeing a numeric rating system.
II. Mimetic Theory & Vicarious Living
“Man is the creature who does not know what to desire, and he turns to others in order to make up his mind. We desire what others desire because we imitate their desires.”
-René Girard
Everyone experiences this feeling from when they are born till when they die. When a kid in kindergarten gets an orange juice and sees everyone else enjoying an apple juice, he cries. When a prepubescent teenage girl sees other teenage girls with full chests, she becomes envious. When John’s wife Jane says “Mandy and her husband are going to the Galapagos this vacation,” you know that she too wants to go on a vacation.
René Girard’s theory partially describes the feeling that most of us know as “Keeping Up With the Joneses.” People want to do things, have things and experience things because the people who they consider important experience them. The larger the group of (important) people desiring the thing, the greater the desire to attain it. But the people who can’t do, have, or experience these things enjoy living vicariously through the people who do.
There is a big reason why a top reality TV show in America is called “Keeping up with the Kardashians.” They each live very extravagant lives and the majority of the people watching live vicariously as a family member by watching episodes.
“We live vicariously through the experiences of the reality TV stars — from the safety of our own homes. We don’t actually have to risk our heart or our reputation when we vicariously live through the experiences of the reality show participants.”
- Dr. Carole Lieberman
While reality TV is one way to live vicariously, people do it on a much larger scale with Instagram and Snapchat. People watch other peoples Snapchat and Instagram stories because they want to peer into the lives of others. They want to see what friends, influencers, and celebrities are up to and live vicariously as them by being transported to their POV for a few moments. I believe that stories are the most consumed form of reality tv in the nation, and social network users are both the stars and the voyeurs. Its how you gauge whether a friend is (at a) cool (event), or if Puerto Rico is as beautiful as you imagined.
There is a reason why Facebook bought Oculus for $2 Billion and their first ad-campaign was a person experiencing the most interesting parts of different peoples lives through their POV. They understand the urge of their users and the world to live vicariously through others.
