The Age of Netflix

by Cory Barker

  Building on this theoretical history, I decided to examine how audiences binge-watch from a perspective that both acknowledges the structure and profit motive of media companies like Netflix that encourage binge-watching, while also recognizing the agency of audiences to demand and control how and what they watch. Netflix has branded itself as a catalyst for the changes in broadcast power structures and information flow, but it is most certainly a for-profit company that benefits from the rise of binge-watching and the collection of viewers’ personal preferences, interests, and data.24 At the same time, viewers exploit Netflix to inexpensively carry and access troves of content on their terms, and perhaps influence what content is produced.25 The unidirectional broadcaster-to-viewer transmission model of the twentieth century is now a dynamic circulation of content, responses, and meanings. I hoped to reflect that dynamism in my audience interviews. My goal was to locate, inhabit, and reflect binge-viewers’ “structure of feeling” within and without the nostalgia of television’s Idiot Box narrative and Netflix’s profit motives.26 As Katherine Sender points out, “Participants’ research reflexivity offers a frame to reconsider contemporary debates about audience research and the role reflexivity might play in these debates.”27

  The nascence of binge-watching poses challenges for traditional understandings of television and for traditional methods of research. Historically most communication scholars have treated the research of new technology as science and examined user behaviors with quantitative, socio-psychological tools.28 I believe that such research can be valuable for close-ended research questions and for developing large samples with predictive and organizational potential. Because binge-watching is a hybrid of technology and culture, I also believe that a wide range of methods should be used to analyze it.29 However, to unearth how and why people binge-watch, I chose to start with qualitative interviewing with open-ended questions that acknowledge the audience’s active role in the meaning making of culture.30

  My approach favors openness over objectivity. By openness I mean accepting that my consciousness is in constant discourse with every aspect of this project. Rather than attempt to isolate, contain, or control that subjectivity, I decided to acknowledge, encourage, and embrace it. My goal was for that openness to be reflected by the interviewees so that the conversations became dialogues of equal positioning.31 This made me a better listener and, ideally, created an atmosphere for freer exchange. The objective was subjectification. I will therefore unpack my own history, behavior, and motives for binge-watching as my interviewees did for me.

  The first time I read the term binge-watching was in the December 2011 issue of Wired, but I had been doing it for years.32 The first series I can remember binge-watching was The Sopranos (1999–2007). I had resisted the HBO drama at first, but, in August 2002, I had some downtime and decided to give it a try. With the fourth season scheduled to air in September 2002, I rented—from a video store—the DVDs of season one. Over the next week, I watched all 39 episodes from the first three seasons. I watched alone, on a 32-inch CRT, in stretches of no less than three episodes. Because I was on vacation, my viewing times and habits were erratic. I remember watching until late at night and then waking up and wanting to watch more. I was binge-watching, I just did not know to call it that. Had I asked myself, as I have the interviewees in this study, why I was viewing so voraciously, I would have said that the series was too good to stop. As soon as an episode ended I wanted more, and, unlike with traditional broadcasting, I could have more—as much more as I wanted. I also felt like I finally understood why so many people loved the series, and I wanted to catch up so I could be a part of the conversation.

  After some 40 hours, I could not wait until the September premiere of season four, and I did not. I started watching the first three seasons again. It was around then that my mother told me I was watching too much television. She was right, and I felt guilty, ashamed, lethargic, but I did not stop. Over the next 13 years, I watched more series than I can remember, but I do remember most of the series that I binge-watched. Like most people today, binge-watching is my preferred method of consumption, but I am aware of its perceived effects; it is a pleasure whose control I am constantly negotiating. Now I study binge-watching, and I am aware that my own rituals and motives influence how I perceive the behavior in myself and others. I believe that that influence can provide insight on shared user experiences, but it may also cause me to overlook details that would stand out to a non-bingeing researcher. My choices of questions and my analysis of viewer responses are unique to me, and I acknowledge that unique position.

  A Brief History of Binge Technology

  DVDs make for inefficient binge-watching. Despite the tactile aesthetics of a DVD box set, viewers using that medium have to insert a disc every three or four hours, which involves an interruption of the narrative immersion.33 In 2002 I did not have much choice, but that soon changed. On-demand programming and DVRs made it possible for viewers to watch continuously without having to get out of their seats. If VHS and DVD were the first generation binge-watching technology, DVRs and on-demand services were the second-generation. Soft-launched in the Bay Area in 1998, TiVo was one of the first DVRs to compress and save video from television to a hard drive. Its popularity grew in the early 2000s as a device that allowed viewers to pause live television and return to it later. It also allowed viewers to record programs and watch them later without commercials (by fast-forwarding), like a VCR minus the VHS tape.34 In order for a series to be saved on TiVo, or any other DVR, it would first have to air on television and be recorded by the viewer. On-demand programming eliminated the necessity to record and store content, but it also limited choice. A viewer could only order what his or her cable provider offered on-demand.35

  In the first years of the twenty-first century, the “Not TV” programming narrative touted by HBO increased the demand for “highbrow” content while streaming video was simultaneously changing the model for content distribution.36 A perceived improvement in programming, particularly serialized dramas, spiked in the mid–2000s with series like 24 (2001–2010, 2014), The Wire (2002–2008), Six Feet Under (2001–2005), and Deadwood (2004–2006).37 The perceived improvement along with increased Internet bandwidth and HDTV pushed DVD viewing out of vogue.38 The void was filled by what I consider to be the third generation of binge-watching technology: digital media players (DMPs) and later smart televisions. These set-top boxes connect online content to televisions, virtually eliminating the need for on-demand.39 In cooperation with streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, HBO Go, and Comcast’s Xfinity Go, which allow users to watch a variety of content on computers and mobile devices, DMPs like Apple TV, Roku, and Amazon Fire TV, seamlessly merged those services on large HDTV screens.40 Yet, it was Netflix’s full-season release model, which began with the Norwegian co-production Lilyhammer (2012–2014), that finally set the table for binge-watching to become the all you-can-eat buffet for which viewers had been salivating.41

  From a content perspective, Netflix’s syndication of programming helped popularize series that had faded, or even completely failed, under the traditional broadcast model.42 Netflix’s vast programming budget sparked a demand for original content production that has created the current programming arms race among traditional television networks and digital content providers. The resulting glut has swelled the potential size of personal video libraries beyond the viewing capacity of a human lifetime.

  Binge-Defining

  Los Angeles Times culture critic Mary McNamara provided one of the first formal definitions of binge-watching: in January of 2012: “Binge television: n. any instance in which more than three episodes of an hourlong drama or six episodes of a half-hour comedy are consumed at one sitting. Syn.: Marathon television and being a TV critic.”43 Over the next two years, Google searches for “binge-watching” spiked.44 Since the publication of McNamara’s article, Netflix’s stock price has soared over 700 percent. Binge-watching is now considered “
the new normal,” but the behavior’s signification remains ambiguous.45 Is binge-watching revolutionary, dangerous, manipulative, empowering, or all of the above?

  Until 2012, the noun binge connoted unhealthy behavior—a period of uncontrollable excess. As a verb it is still commonly associated with binge drinking and binge eating—psychological symptoms associated with a pathological loss of control.46 Despite appending the same modifier, binge-watching has mostly been depicted as a liberating experience, the worst side-effect of which is poor personal hygiene, in the more than ten thousand newspaper and magazine articles mentioning the behavior since 2012.47 The rapid transformation of binge-watching from obscurity to ubiquity has stretched popular understanding of binge. The act and the term represent a subversive use of a signifier to ironically exaggerate the signified. The wordplay stems from the first people to identify as binge viewers—self-conscious 1990s “TV nerds” who passionately celebrated their viewing obsessions with like-minded outsider fanatics.48 The “nerd-only” behavior has gone mainstream without losing its ironic vestigial root modifier. As one interviewee told me, “Binging [sic] is cool because it’s still subversive.” Of course, Netflix has been quick to capitalize on that “cool,” while simultaneously making fun of itself and binge-watchers.49 Despite all of the chatter about binge-watching, few media scholars have studied the behavior. In late 2013, Harris-Interactive and Netflix conducted proprietary research through an online survey of over 3,000 U.S. Netflix customers, of which nearly 1,500 streamed series at least once a week. Of them, 73 percent reported “positive feelings towards binge-streaming TV” and 80 percent said “they would rather stream a good TV show than read a friend’s social media posts.”50

  Binge Method

  As I have argued, binge-watching is a hybrid of technology and culture. It challenges the traditional power dynamics of unidirectional broadcast flows from producer through viewer. To reflect this, I employed qualitative methods and grounded theory in an attempt to put the viewer as interviewee on a more equal footing and to reflect the dynamism of the behavior itself. I conducted this exploratory research on binge-watching during 2014 through semi-structured interviews each lasting approximately 60 minutes as well as informal discussions each lasting approximately 30 minutes. My rationale was that in-depth conversations provide more substantive and robust answers to how and why questions, and elicit the kind of thick descriptions that can encourage future scholarship. The conversations were conducted in-person. Twenty-one women and 15 men between the ages of 22 and 66 participated. They all lived in the Philadelphia or New York City metropolitan areas, and most had completed a college degree; four were born outside the United States. I reconnected with several participants during the spring of 2015 to ask follow-up questions via Facebook Messenger.

  My interviewing style was strongly influenced by my eight years as a journalist. I used open-ended questions and a semi-structured format that allowed our conversations to flow organically. Although most of the people I spoke with answered (directly and indirectly) my 25 questions/prompts, they did not all answer them in the same order or by my prompting. An interviewee may have answered question 12 (“Can you describe your typical binge-watching experience?”) when I asked question seven (“What are some of the things you enjoy about binge-watching?”). Again, my goal was to loosen the interview structure in order to liberate rich, personal insights rather than sticking to a script.

  After completing and transcribing the initial interviews, I began to look for themes. I employed qualitative, inductive methods to code the content.51 As the interview process evolved, I noted when those themes arose in other conversations. As I found repetition in the themes, I sorted for categories of rituals and motivations while continuing to have discussions that influenced the sorting. This dynamic process continued until late 2014, when I reached a saturation point; I kept finding the same themes arising from different questions. I then felt satisfied that I had gathered sufficient information to conclude the interviews.

  Next I coded the transcripts and employed theoretical sampling of the thick descriptions I had culled in order to isolate motives, rituals, and feelings.52 This afforded me a vivid tableau of how this group of people define binge-watching, how and why they binge-watch, and how they feel about binge-watching. I should note that participants were very eager to discuss binge-watching with me. This led to snowball sampling: interviewees told people they knew about my project, allowing me to expand my network of participants. The popularity and novelty of the behavior are certainly responsible for participant enthusiasm, but I believe that people find the ambivalence of binge-watching intriguing as well. As Mary Choi writes in Wired:

  Weird stuff happens after about eight hours of watching the same TV show. Your eyes feel crunchy. You get a headache that sits in your teeth, the kind that comes from hitching your free time to a runaway train of self-indulgence—too much booze, food, or sleep. Of course, there’s also a sense of accomplishment, of smugness, that comes from blowing through years of television in mere days.53

  That ambivalence speaks to how binge-viewers are actively negotiating their behavior. It is an ironic balancing act of feigned remorse and vacillating pride/shame. It is both empowering and debilitating—an experience of control and lack of control facilitated by technology. I felt that tension of comprehension and signification vibrating through our conversations.

  Binge Findings

  Rituals

  Interviewees roughly affirmed McNamara’s 2012 definition of binge-watching—at least two hours of the same 30-minute series or at least three hours of the same 60-minute series. An important difference was that some interviews considered binge-watching to be simply watching a series “from beginning to end.” While most interviewees stressed that the number of episodes watched in a sitting was primary to the definition, there were at least two interviewees for whom the consistency and completion of a season or series were more important. A 55-year-old English teacher from Philadelphia told me that she might only watch two episodes of a series per night. “As long as I’m consistently watching that show, then yeah, it’s binge-watching.” She only had time to watch short spurts, but she perceived a season as a complete unit that she was finishing “like a book,” on her own schedule. Her definition of binge-watching was about controlling the narrative flow and closure at her convenience rather than the slower broadcast model she had grown up using. Those who still had cable television (about half) reported bingeing through on-demand platforms as well as streaming video. Others used only streaming devices; no one regularly used DVDs, though many interviewees’ first bingeing experiences were, like mine, with DVD players or VCRs. Predictably, Netflix was the most commonly cited service for binge-watching across all devices.

  Interviewees differentiated binge-watching from other television watching in terms of portability and consistency. While some interviewees acknowledged that it is possible to binge-watch broadcast commercial television, such as a Seinfeld (1989–1998) marathon, and many had at some point watched “traditional” television for extended periods of time, no one reported binge-watching through that medium. Several interviewees told me: “I hate commercials” often with a colorful modifier inserted. A 29-year-old South Jersey graduate student told me, “I find traditional TV annoying now. Even DVR. I don’t like commercials. I don’t like how commercials get super loud. I don’t like waiting for the next episode. Netflix makes TV better.” Advertising, particularly when it is obvious and intrusive, interrupts the focused continuity and narrative immersion that viewers associate with binge-watching.

  The distinction of the Netflix user experience is such that some younger viewers perceive the service as other than television, even if they watch Netflix on a television. Viewers’ ability to watch on multiple devices (smartphones, laptops, tablets), their technological control of content, described as being able to pause, rewind, and fast-forward, and the full season release model were identified as essential to the experience. They
all challenge the traditional broadcast model of commercial breaks. “When I need to go to the bathroom I can pause,” one person told me. “I don’t need to wait for a commercial.” A 22-year-old engineering student reported that she stopped watching the MTV comedy Awkward. (2011–2016) because she found the commercials “annoying.” Before Netflix she may have stuck with the series; now she can resist it.

  According to my interviews, most binge-watching takes place at home, in the evenings of workdays, and on weekends. A 31-year-old software engineer did admit binge-watching at work, but that was only because he was “being laid off over the course of six months” and “had to be in the office” even though he “wasn’t really working.” Interviewees reported using vacation time to binge series that they didn’t have time to watch earlier. “I do plan on clearing my schedule for a few days for OINTB (Orange Is the New Black [2013–]),” a 30-year-old writer from Philadelphia told me. “I have taken sick days to finish a show,” one interviewee admitted sheepishly. “Long weekends usually mean Netflix,” said another. Viewers celebrate the freedom of being able to control the content consumption while acknowledging the power of the content to control them.54 As one interviewee told me in August of 2014, “I’m not going near Game of Thrones (2011–) until Christmas.” Although season four of the HBO fantasy drama premiered in late spring of that year, he chose to savor the epic by waiting for long holiday when he could be completely immersed. This was his choice, but he also recognized that it might be dangerous for him to start the series while he was working.