Television Is Stressing Me Out, Man
When did watching television become a task? Now, I actually have to keep up with the shows I want to watch and what season of which show I am on and actually remember what happened when I return to watch that show because I am constantly watching like five series at one time.
It’s exhausting.
I remember first feeling overwhelmed by the abundance of television (and even film) choices when I was on a flight back to the US from London. I was scrolling through a seemingly endless list of movies available by American Airlines (shameless plug) when I had a slight panic attack from all of the options.
The array of movies, television, and music that populate mainstream pop culture gives me this surprising anxiety because I want to consume it all and it’s almost impossible to do that. I mean to be honest, this anxiety towards pop culture is something that has been developing for about a year now but really hit me in the last month. I remember being tired on that 10 hour plane ride back to the U.S and didn’t have the brain capacity to mentally divide up my time between the two Serial episodes I had saved, the entire Beatles repertoire on my Spotify, let alone the 15 movies now at my disposal.
Also, the week before I had just binged Fargo Season 2 on (French) Netflix while I spent the holidays in Paris and was currently on season two of Downton Abbey and season two of Transparent at the same time.
…Meanwhile I still hadn’t finished Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a book I had been reading since the summer.
So the question I have is: Since everything is available all of the time now, how much entertainment should I consume? I mean, it is nearly impossible to watch all of the hit tv shows, read the newest novels and still try to keep up with the best podcasts, yet at age 20 here I am trying to do it all.
*I blame the fact that I am a film student and for this reason not only do I feel obligated to consume a lot of television and movies but it becomes almost a burden.
“Have you seen Jessica Jones yet?”
“OMG. WATCH MR. ROBOT.”
“Watch Scream Queens with me,” (No.)
“Serial is so good the season. Listen to it so we can talk about it.”
…Are just a few of the phrases I have heard in the past few months.
And yes I want to watch all of these shows and love them along with everyone else but I don’t have the time.
Here are just a few of the shows that I dropped in the past year because of the new and better shows that took their place:
- The Mindy Project
- New Girl
- Scandal
- Togetherness
- Empire
This list is longer but I am just blanking at the moment.
Anyways, the point is of this quasi-essay, quasi-ramble, is that in a culture built on knowing more and experiencing more, the abundance of television has become worrisome.
I have slowly realized that there is no way to “catch up” on the zeitgeist, and that I won’t always be able to watch everything that everyone is talking about and this is a defeat that I am reluctantly willing to take. However, it just amazes me how something such as television, something seemingly so trivial could stress me out so much.
It’s actually really scary.
