Hate watching television shows

 

This is not a new theme, but it has definitely taken on new forms and entered a new dimension over the past two years or so.  People watch television content that they hate, in order to appreciate the experience of not liking it.  So strange!

The latest example that really clarifies this is Velma, a new interpretation of the Scooby Doo story line.  In the past a repeating theme of very liberal oriented content drawing attention from more mainstream and conservative viewers defined this general trend, but this is something else.  This show was seemingly created so that both liberals and conservatives, and most in between, would be offended by it, or would dislike aspects, and that "buzz" of how terrible it is would drive viewership.  And it works; this show has the lowest critic and viewer ratings of almost anything ever created, and pretty much every popular culture commentary oriented channel on Youtube is talking about it, resulting in terrible ratings, but probably in good viewership.  So strange!

Let's back up and consider that earlier "woke" content form and see how it maps onto Velma, and how it doesn't.  The last part is simple enough; they literally, explicitly, and openly criticize "woke" or relatively extreme progressive left wing perspective.  They go further though, rejecting favorite topics like marijuana use, and extending gender-swapping of characters to a point that even relatively extreme liberals might be put off by.  So back to what "woke" content is:

race or gender swapped characters:  She Hulk changes over the Hulk to a female character version, as an example, a change that was initiated in a print comic form many years ago.  In the Velma series the protagonist, if the character is interpreted as that, is Indian, matching the creator and voice actor's origin / race, and Shaggy, another main character, now referred to as his earlier given name, Norville, is black (instead of white).  This general practice irritates conservatives, or even some mainstream centrist viewers, but in this case it's seemingly used to make fun of the practice, a "meta" sort of critique of what it's actually doing, which may or may not work.  One character is Asian but red haired and doesn't look Asian; that's also hard to place.

sexualization of cartoon minors in Velma is probably in poor taste (source)

negative portrayal of white males:  in this Velma cartoon it goes so far as to make the only main white male character be described as having a small penis, over and over, and to be unintelligent, and narrow in perspective.  It's not so much more extreme than in other Marvel series content, but a little.

emphasis on characterizations versus stories:  this is a main criticism that is applied, that these changes, taken alone, aren't so negative (relatively speaking), but instead of supporting new stories and new character development they're used to replace conventional story telling aspects:  building up an internal conflict, developing that through plot points, leading to character arcs and resolution events.  

Does a writer or producer need to utilize these forms though, for example, the "hero's journey" story and character arcs?  Maybe not, but a new form of story telling would typically involve some sort of replacement form, not just these cultural characterizations, with dialog mapped onto them that supports these basic themes (women are more self-aware and powerful than men, etc.).  An interesting brand-new story form might work, not involving that or other older standard elements and forms, with the standard criticism being applied that the creators of left-oriented content aren't really even attempting that.  The forms and messages replace telling stories, and developing complex, relatable characters.

it makes you wonder what half the critics are appreciating

reliance on prior forms / characters:  why not make up such a story line without involving Scooby Doo, or the Hulk, and so on?  In a sense She Hulk has sidestepped this concern, because She Hulk was a prior text / comic form.  Marvel re-created Hulk as an attractive female version to draw on prior awareness and connection, and the same occurs over and over with these other video forms.  It builds in an audience interest, drawing on earlier IP; you can't blame creators or show producers and backers for that.

meta / third wall commentary:  the Velma show is said to rely on this to an absurd form (I've not watched the actual show, to be clear), and She Hulk also did, drawing on a prior physical comic convention for that character.  This isn't automatically rejected or embraced as a left or right related theme; how it is used determines acceptance or rejection.

I've watched shows that I have very mixed feelings about myself, in order to see just how bad they'll get, or how they'll apply these themes in those story contexts.  There's something inherently interesting and appealing about it.  I suppose examples in my own case relate almost entirely to Disney + content, since we subscribe to that streaming service, and they produce Marvel and other content that relates.  To me She Hulk, Ms. Marvel, the last Hawkeye series, and to a lesser extent Willow all represent this form.  Rings of Power, the Tolkien world content, may be the clearest example; I haven't watched that either, but according to a lot of commentary they've dropped the emphasis on existing in the same fictional world to promote these progressive character elements and themes.  Velma could be a next iteration form, not just "woke," but intentionally bad, designed to offend a broad range of viewers.

One sub-theme that doesn't draw much attention is how this has not only helped with show promotion, in some instances, but that a broad range of Youtube commentary channels are drawing much broader audiences from this trend, and therefore benefitting from it.  I suppose the Critical Drinker channel represents as good an example as any; any given critique of anything I've mentioned, and any Terminator or Star Wars movie or tv show, is essentially the same as every other video he produces.  And his following has ballooned as a result, up from hundreds of thousands of followers not that long ago, or maybe under 100k on a two year time-frame, to well over a million.  

source

Dozens of main commentator channels rush to cash in on this theme, to increase their following, and probably thousands of smaller channels and producers make the same attempt, just less successfully.  It's a gold rush for content producers, along with being form of media expression of a social movement.

This is an interesting example, Why Has Hate Watching Become A Sport? - Chris Gore.  He never really does address that question, instead explaining that he personally watches content he doesn't like because he's a film or media content reviewer, and needs to in order to comment on it.  That's not addressing the main point:  why is his own content much more popular now, when it touches on this criticism, versus when he is making any other point?  Why do audiences watch content they don't like?

He's a real film enthusiast reference, seemingly a veteran media reviewer, to be clear, not the same type of reference as many others.  To me the Filmento channel is similar in this regard, a previously existing review / commentary channel that existed prior to this trend, basing content on a broader theme.  Still, both "cash in" on the popularity of this sub-theme of the current US culture war.  Essentially every related content creator says the same thing:  I watch this bad content so you don't have to.  But that's just a catchy idea that they feel compelled to repeat, and people watch these shows, seemingly to see how bad they are.

I've still not really explained the appeal of that myself, have I?  I watched the first couple of episodes of Ms. Marvel and realized that it was just awful, but why did I continue watching that?  And She Hulk.  It has been compared to watching a car accident, how there is some strange appeal to observing what is objectively unpleasant, but still interesting, maybe all the more for that awfulness.

There was always a novelty involved too.  The form is now becoming familiar, those components that I described, the "progressive" themes development, but prior to two years ago they weren't really uniformly developed, so every example of all that could be a bit different from the last, a new interpretation of it.  Going just one step further could appeal to someone appreciating the representation, eg. of gender neutral status, but also anyone not connected to that theme could appreciate how it was handled, maybe even especially if it was handled badly, in a form that rejects current norms and intentionally offends a broad range of viewers.  This is where Velma lands; it can be funny or interesting to see the creators reject the most mainstream accepted ideas possible, eg. rejecting normalcy of marijuana use, or even acceptance.

  

Moving forward from there, could racism ever be used in such a way; is there any practical limit, in expressing ideas society universally rejects to draw attention?  That really remains to be seen.  In the current liberal Hollywood sub-culture climate maybe not, but others outside that scope might use radically unpopular themes as an inroad, at some point.  In the past a commentary "comedy" show Politically Incorrect used a fairly mainstream rejection of some static earlier norms as a main theme, but then when Bill Maher eventually did express something truly politically incorrect, that maybe the 9/11 terrorists should be admired for being willing to die in support of their views, he was cancelled, completely.  With content now being independently produced options may be more open.

It makes me think about what examples of the worst, poorest taste, most unacceptable content possible have been in the past, which have gained popularity.  "Bum Fights" comes to mind; there is little more horrible than exploiting the poor and mentally ill for financial gain, using them committing acts of violence against each other as a basis for content.  Legal action would be used to shut anything like that down now.  Slap fighting might be about as distasteful as anything related to actual sports go.  This was kind of funny, recently, but only in a very twisted sense:

In that "sport" people hit each other with no chance of protecting themselves, and whoever can damage the other more, or take more damage, wins in the end.  It's not really ok.

I see all this as an extension of the culture war in the US, one outcome of it.  Media sources have long since used negativity as click-bait, encouraging people to read or watch the latest terrible thing the "other side" did or said.  It was probably only a matter of time until media followed suit, building on dislike as a main appeal, on to the extent that hating the viewed content itself could become a goal.

Is this a problem?  Negativity extending this far could be, if only indirectly.  I've mentioned here before how it's odd that many Reddit groups that had been fan oriented can shift over time to center on hate for the very producer or media figure that they were created to support, as in the case of the Joe Rogan sub.  One might think it's a non-issue if some thousands of people decide to discuss their dislike of a former favorite star, but that sub has 800k followers, seemingly representing a mainstream accepted theme at this point.  It's not so different than 1.5 million tuning in to hear the exact same complaints about media content, that they already know has the same undesirable characteristics as the last half dozen similar shows or movies.  Probably a substantial part of Joe Rogan's audience tunes in to experience dislike of his stated opinions--crazy.  For half of the US that's what the Trump theme was about, following political events to become outraged, not just daily but more frequently than that.

Does this represent cultural decay of some type?  Maybe.  We can't know if this is a universal pattern, if during the long fall of Rome something similar came up, just in real life, but I suppose it doesn't matter.  Either way a "garbage in--garbage out" pattern must apply to people consuming a lot of content in order to hate it, that it can't be a positive life experience input, just as reading comment sections and repeating "you people are all idiots" wouldn't be healthy.  I'm reminded of the critique of internet culture in the observation that people with all the world's knowledge at their fingertips instead use their smart phones to look at pictures of cats and argue with strangers.  Or now on to watch shows that they hate, to enjoy hating them.