The other week, I had this actual thought: I should probably watch Squid Game Season 2, otherwise it’ll be too late.
I caught myself. Too late? Too late for what, exactly? I realized, in that moment, that I actually wasn’t even bothered about watching Squid Game Season 2 (they could have stopped at one, I don’t know why all IP has to be rinsed to death). It was more about keeping up with the current conversation. Which is an odd way to consume culture, really, if you think about it, when there are so many films and TV shows that might be more to my taste.
In some ways, this consume-and-discard approach is part and parcel of my job. I’m supposed to keep up with “what’s happening,” otherwise what would I have to write about? But I’m clearly not the only person who does this—it’s generally considered the “right” way to absorb culture, rather than a more scattergun approach. There’s a certain reverence placed upon those who know what’s currently popular and have opinions about it (just look at platforms like Letterboxd or Goodreads). And, realistically, those gives us something to talk about: I love chatting with colleagues about what happened in the Traitors finale, or getting into debates over cocktails about whether or not Babygirl should be classed as A Good Film.
But water-cooler topics are only a fraction of why I like to watch things. Films and TV shows are portals into other worlds; they pull open the curtain beyond what you already know. I remember watching Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers (1994) for the first time and being blown away by the madness of it: this was a world of old-school American diners and guns in the desert and red string tanks and scorpion tattoos. (Quite different from the plain, concrete shapes of Hackney, where I grew up.) Wim Wenders’s Paris, Texas (1984), too, infiltrated my mind in such a way that sometimes I still see it behind my eyelids before I fall asleep: green lamplight, neon pink, a lonely drive down a dirty highway. This is why I like to watch things, not because I’m supposed to.
But somewhere along the way, I started gamifying my viewing habits. It probably aligned with the rise of online discourse and a semi social media-induced pressure to “keep up.” Before I had an iPhone and a media job, in ye olden days, I’d watch old seasons of Sex and the City and Curb Your Enthusiasm without feeling guilty about not watching other, newer things. Obviously, there were certain shows and films that everyone watched in unison—The X Factor on a Saturday, Big Brother in its golden era—but I don’t think there was that same compulsion to be actively involved in the wider collective’s viewing habits in a way that eclipsed the actual content at hand. Now, I feel bad if I haven’t seen all the Oscar-nominated films. I’m out here mainlining Industry like it’s homework.
Trying to “win” at pop culture sucks all the fun out of it. So this year, I’m embracing a much slower, more mindful approach—“slow-viewing,” if you will. I’ve never seen The Sopranos, for instance, the first episode of which came out in 1999, so maybe I’ll get round to that at some point. I rewatched Girls fairly recently, an experience that was totally different the second time round. I’m not interested in seeing A Complete Unknown—I’m sorry, I’m just not!—so I’m not going to force my way through a screening like I might have done previously. And I felt absolutely fine turning off Emilia Pérez 10 minutes in, once I accepted the fact that I don’t enjoy watching grown people do singing.
Realizing that I don’t have to keep up with culture—beyond doing my actual job—has been more than liberating: It’s reminded me of why I became such a pop culture nerd to begin with. On a recent Saturday, instead of going out, I stayed up watching old episodes of Twin Peaks. Next, I intend to finally see the 1993 film Dazed and Confused. Who knew that watching films and TV could be so much fun when you’re doing so just…for the fun of it.