Within the early 2000s, only a few years earlier than Netflix started providing streaming providers and when time spent watching TV in America was at its peak, Cristel Russell had an remark: Amid the increase of recent tv collection, why did so many individuals select to rewatch exhibits they’d already seen? Russell, a professor of promoting on the Graziadio Enterprise College at Pepperdine College, realized the phenomenon utilized not solely to tv, however books, motion pictures, and journey experiences, too. “I believed this query had already been studied,” she says. “And it turned out it had not.”
Russell and a collaborator, the advertising researcher Sidney Levy, interviewed 23 research members to parse their motivations for revisiting acquainted media. Revealed in 2011, Russell and Levy’s paper helped outline the idea of a rewatch — volitional reconsumption — and defined why nostalgia isn’t the first motivation for returning to those exhibits.
This interview has been edited and condensed for readability.
What did you discover motivated folks to revisit sure media?
Going into this, I believed that it could be nostalgia, as a result of that might have appeared like essentially the most logical cause. Contributors would say [shows were] like consolation meals. They’d return to one thing that was acquainted, and so they knew they appreciated it, however they didn’t essentially bear in mind the small print of why they appreciated it. They knew that it was a humorous present, however they couldn’t actually bear in mind precisely what was humorous about it, or they knew that it was a film that made them really feel good on the finish, however couldn’t bear in mind the small print. They loved it that rather more as a result of now they have been rediscovering it as if it have been new as a result of they couldn’t bear in mind precisely.
If it’s not nostalgia, then what’s at play right here?
The definition of nostalgia is a craving for the previous. It’s a want to return to a earlier time. What I discovered in my analysis is that it’s not a lot [participants] have been craving for the previous. It’s that the rewatching expertise allowed them to understand how a lot that they had grown. It wasn’t craving for the previous; it was an appreciation of the current. The deep connection that you just make to [the show] supplies this self-reflexive second that you just’re like, “Wow, once I first watched this, I used to be 20. And now I’m 40. And I’ve children.” You see it in a different way and that means that you can be like, “I’m a special individual than I used to be then.”
What different misconceptions exist which can be extensively accepted about rewatching?
I believed this is able to be a passive conduct. I believed that folks rewatched as a result of they needed one thing senseless. However it’s often very participating and lively. They actually needed to be transported into their present but in addition into themselves and attempting to recapture the enjoyment that they bear in mind having. We name it volitional since you select it. You need it and due to this fact you might be actually into it and listening to it.
Through the pandemic, many individuals have been rewatching exhibits, partly attributable to the truth that manufacturing on new exhibits and movies had stalled. However what else fueled our choices to revisit TV throughout this time of disaster?
Consolation. I do suppose there’s a component of, “I do know this isn’t going to disappoint me as a result of I bear in mind liking it.” Identical to once you take a look at an enormous menu at a restaurant and also you take a look at all these different issues that you just’ve by no means tried, however you all the time find yourself ordering the pad thai with shrimp. We generally tend to revert to the acquainted — that’s a human drive — and particularly at instances of disaster. I feel we noticed a few of that within the pandemic. However due to streaming entry, you will have so many selections that you just simply don’t know the way to make sense of all of it. So you find yourself simply being like, “Oh, I’ll take the one which I do know as a result of I can’t digest these lots of of hundreds of various choices that I’ve on my Roku and Netflix.”
It’s attention-grabbing that you just level that out as a result of I’ve been noticing folks round my age rewatching the HBO present Ladies which aired about 10 years in the past, which isn’t that way back. However I feel for folks of my technology, we’re reflecting on our youth.
We additionally generally see how society has modified. It makes you understand the progress that society might need made, or at the least the adjustments. I see it as progressive the place you see that you just your self have modified, however possibly additionally the world that you just reside in has modified. So it’s slightly window to the previous. However this window to the previous means that you can see the current extra clearly.
What makes an excellent rewatch present? Have they got sure qualities or traits or is it extra so in regards to the particular person’s style?
Actually, I’m nonetheless trying to find the reply. In truth, I’ve a venture occurring proper now that’s about what makes successful as a result of I do suppose there are specific patterns. My co-author and I feel there’s one thing associated to the cultural zeitgeist — {that a} present faucets into a selected cultural zeitgeist and that’s what makes it grow to be successful when it first comes out.
There are common traits that can make it stick throughout these generations, like friendships. Seinfeld is a gaggle of buddies. Associates is a gaggle of buddies. So there’s numerous elements, which is why it’s so laborious to reply these questions. And my job, as a researcher, is to attempt to distill it right down to the important elements.
I feel doubtless it’s going to come back right down to the fundamental Greek kinds like tragedy, comedy.
Does binge-watching influence the best way that we revisit and reinterpret a present that we most likely watched when it aired weekly?
I’ve one other paper known as Narrative Navigation, it’s additionally about TV, and in that one, what we observed was within the streaming age, folks navigate the exhibits that they watch, and particularly the exhibits that they rewatch, very in a different way. I rewatch issues from begin to end. We’d discover that folks would watch the ending first. Or they might skip complete scenes as a result of there’s a personality that they don’t like. Or simply watch the final season.
Most people we interviewed have been doing all this piecemeal viewing or skipping or pausing. Many have been even going on the web to e book a visit so they may go go to the spot that they only noticed on the present.
What do folks get out of it by watching it in these methods?
Mainly now they’re in management. Within the previous days, it was right here’s your Thursday evening lineup. And also you’ve received to attend till subsequent Thursday to see the subsequent episode. Now we’re fed the whole three seasons of a collection abruptly, and so that you get to decide on the tempo at which you watch it. It’s not one dimension matches all anymore. It was linear. Even when they recorded it, most individuals watched TV fairly near when episodes have been launched. Now it’s in every single place.
What has shocked you essentially the most out of your analysis on rewatching?
Regardless of what number of instances folks repeated watching the identical TV collection, they might all the time decide up on new issues in it. The reason being as a result of persons are hyper-responsive. In different phrases, they’ve absolutely devoted their consideration. We’re so distracted in fashionable life. That is truly a method of focusing your consideration on one thing since you adore it a lot. This hyper-attentiveness and hyper-responsiveness makes you suppose, “I didn’t even discover, within the background of the backyard over there, they’re rising this flower.” The primary time you by no means even observed there was a backyard within the background as a result of we’re wanting on the characters. It’s virtually like an infinite provide of novelty, regardless that you’re truly doing one thing that’s the identical.
