Binge-watching a TV show needs to be recognized as the therapeutic exercise it is
When you tell someone who doesn’t love television as much as you do that you spent an entire weekend catching up on the past four seasons of The Walking Dead, they might look at you like there’s something legitimately wrong with you. For some reason, watching too much television has a bad reputation as a symptom that someone is depressed, lazy, or at least just really lame. But it’s about time that binge watching a TV show get recognition for being the therapeutic exercise that it really is. As anyone who does it knows, binge-watching can actually be a really good way to decompress and chill the f*ck out.
Binge watching isn’t something that Millennials and Netflix created, by the way. Back in the day, it used to just be called “there’s an X-Files marathon on, so I’m not coming over, but you can come here.” Of course, all the streaming networks these days and the fact that there’s just so much content out there mean the world is basically a TV lover’s dream in 2017.
Not only can you spend countless hours watching whatever cinematic HBO show everybody is talking about these days, but classics are out there just waiting to be devoured. (Like, Melrose Place is on Netflix. You’re welcome.) You can find whatever your little heart desires with just a few clicks and your credit card number — and you should never beat yourself up for enjoying every single minute of it.
Sometimes all that content can be overwhelming, and we turn to our comfort shows. Whenever the world and Twitter become too much for me, there’s nothing I love more than hitting play on Grey’s Anatomy and starting from scratch. Sure, I know the plot lines so thoroughly that I don’t have to pause every time I get up to throw my laundry in the dryer, so it’s not like I can pretend that following the threads of the story is somehow helping my brain become more agile. But it’s relaxing, much like knitting, baking a pie, or doing some yoga would be. (And, for the record, those are all things one can do while watching TV.)
