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In 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 statement: Amid the increase of recent tv collection, why did so many individuals select to rewatch reveals they’d already seen? Russell, a professor of promoting on the Graziadio Business School at Pepperdine University, realized the phenomenon utilized not solely to tv, however books, films, and journey experiences, too. “I thought this question had already been studied,” she says. “And it turned out it had not.”
Russell and a collaborator, the advertising and marketing researcher Sidney Levy, interviewed 23 research contributors to parse their motivations for revisiting acquainted media. Published 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 reveals.
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 might be nostalgia, as a result of that will have appeared like essentially the most logical purpose. Participants would say [shows were] like consolation meals. They would return to one thing that was acquainted, they usually knew they favored it, however they didn’t essentially bear in mind the main points of why they favored 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 main points. They loved it that rather more as a result of now they had been rediscovering it as if it had 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 need to return to a earlier time. What I discovered in my analysis is that it’s not a lot [participants] had 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 simply make to [the show] gives this self-reflexive second that you simply’re like, “Wow, when I first watched this, I was 20. And now I’m 40. And I have kids.” You see it in another way and that lets you be like, “I’m a different person than I was then.”
What different misconceptions exist which are broadly accepted about rewatching?
I believed this might be a passive habits. I believed that individuals rewatched as a result of they needed one thing senseless. But it’s often very partaking 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 subsequently you might be actually into it and listening to it.
During the pandemic, many individuals had been rewatching reveals, partly on account of the truth that manufacturing on new reveals and movies had stalled. But what else fueled our selections to revisit TV throughout this time of disaster?
Comfort. I do suppose there’s a component of, “I know this is not going to disappoint me because I remember liking it.” Just like while you take a look at a giant menu at a restaurant and also you take a look at all these different issues that you simply’ve by no means tried, however you at all times find yourself ordering the pad thai with shrimp. We generally tend to revert to the acquainted — that’s a human drive — and particularly at occasions of disaster. I feel we noticed a few of that within the pandemic. But due to streaming entry, you could have so many selections that you simply simply don’t know learn how to make sense of all of it. So you find yourself simply being like, “Oh, I’ll take the one that I know because I can’t digest these hundreds of thousands of different options that I have on my Roku and Netflix.”
It’s fascinating that you simply level that out as a result of I’ve been noticing folks round my age rewatching the HBO present Girls which aired about 10 years in the past, which isn’t that way back. But 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 may need made, or at the very least the adjustments. I see it as progressive the place you see that you simply your self have modified, however possibly additionally the world that you simply reside in has modified. So it’s a bit of window to the previous. But this window to the previous lets you see the current extra clearly.
What makes rewatch present? Do they’ve sure qualities or traits or is it extra so concerning the particular person’s style?
Honestly, I’m nonetheless looking for the reply. In truth, I’ve a challenge happening 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 specific cultural zeitgeist and that’s what makes it grow to be successful when it first comes out.
There are common traits that may make it stick throughout these generations, like friendships. Seinfeld is a gaggle of pals. Friends is a gaggle of pals. So there’s numerous elements, which is why it’s so exhausting to reply these questions. And my job, as a researcher, is to attempt to distill it all the way down to the important elements.
I feel possible it’s going to come back all the way down to the fundamental Greek types like tragedy, comedy.
Does binge-watching affect the best way that we revisit and reinterpret a present that we in all probability 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 seen was within the streaming age, folks navigate the reveals that they watch, and particularly the reveals that they rewatch, very in another way. I rewatch issues from begin to end. We would discover that individuals would watch the ending first. Or they’d skip complete scenes as a result of there’s a personality that they don’t like. Or simply watch the final season.
Most of the folks we interviewed had been doing all this piecemeal viewing or skipping or pausing. Many had been even going on the web to e book a visit so they might 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?
Basically now they’re in management. In the outdated days, it was right here’s your Thursday evening lineup. And you’ve obtained to attend till subsequent Thursday to see the following episode. Now we’re fed your complete three seasons of a collection , and so that you get to decide on the tempo at which you watch it. It’s not one measurement suits all anymore. It was once linear. Even in the event that they recorded it, most individuals watched TV fairly near when episodes had been launched. Now it’s in all places.
What has stunned you essentially the most out of your analysis on rewatching?
No matter what number of occasions folks repeated watching the identical TV collection, they’d at all times choose up on new issues in it. The purpose is as a result of persons are hyper-responsive. In different phrases, they’ve absolutely devoted their consideration. We’re so distracted in trendy life. This is definitely a method of focusing your consideration on one thing since you find it irresistible a lot. This hyper-attentiveness and hyper-responsiveness makes you suppose, “I didn’t even notice, in the background of the garden over there, they’re growing this flower.” The first time you by no means even seen there was a backyard within the background as a result of we’re trying on the characters. It’s virtually like an infinite provide of novelty, although you’re really doing one thing that’s the identical.
