There’s nothing quite as relieving as spending hours fueling your hatred for your least favorite piece of media. Whether it’s embarrassing TikToks or poorly-aged TV shows, everyone dabbles in a little hate-watching from time to time. Not to be confused with a guilty pleasure, hate-watching is the act of going out of your way to watch a show, film, or video that you dislike because you take pleasure in criticizing or laughing at it. While it’s seen a rise in recent years with the influx of streaming services completely altering how we watch TV, hate-watching has been common long before the 2020s.
The family everyone loves to hate saw the rise of their careers from their successful 20-season-spanning show, Keeping Up with the Kardashians. The show premiered in 2007 and gained traction as a result of Kim Kardashian’s sex tape. People were running to get a look into the life of women who they subjected to an immense amount of slut-shaming. When the sex tape became a mere passing moment in Kim’s career, viewers were still eager to keep watching. The Kardashian-Jenner family is under constant controversy and criticism, whether it be over matters of cultural appropriation, privileged ignorance, or relationship drama. Yet, Keeping Up with the Kardashians was one of E!’s most popular reality shows. When it came to an end in 2020, Hulu premiered a sequel to the series, The Kardashians, the following year. The world’s obsession with the family was put on display once again, as Hulu reported that The Kardashians had the biggest American premiere on their service.
Hate-watching may seem like some innocent fun, but it does raise the question: has it impacted how viewers, and the entertainment industry, interact with TV? Keeping Up with the Kardashians isn’t the only show that saw success from viewers looking for some cringey fun. In fact, some argue that most shows see renewals as a result of hate-watching.
In 2017, The CW premiered their most infamous show to date, Riverdale. The show’s first season garnered generally positive reviews. It was a fun addition to TV dramas featuring beloved characters from Archie Comics but received some criticism due to the initial romanticization of a student-teacher relationship between Archie and his teacher, Geraldine. Since then, the show has notoriously deteriorated in quality. Plotlines have gone awry and the show has gone from teen mystery to horror to supernatural to the occasional musical. Yet, in five years, Riverdale has seen six seasons with its seventh, and final one, coming in 2023.
This issue of hate-watching goes beyond objectively bad shows getting lots of attention, though. On Sep. 21, Netflix teamed up with American Horror Story and Glee creator, Ryan Murphy, to premiere Monster: The Jeffery Dahmer Story. The show retold the life of serial killer Jefferey Dahmer, portrayed by Evan Peters. From its first trailer, social media blew up with criticism about the series. Many, including the sister of Errol Lindsey — one of Dahmer’s victims — accused Murphy of exploiting the victims’ stories. It was also revealed that the showrunners went on with creating the show, despite never getting an ‘OK’ from the victims’ families. Despite the controversy surrounding it, Monster became the second most-viewed English language show on Netflix, with over 701 million hours watched.
But what’s the big issue with hate-watching? If everyone can keep their favorite shows and leave the bad ones for the hate-watchers then everyone’s happy, right? Well, not exactly. With hate-watching bringing so much traction to streaming services, companies have begun to rely on the views they get from controversial content. Shows that received positive feedback didn’t make it to a second season. Paper Girls, Archive 81, and First Kill were scrapped by their services in favor of their well-hated, but very popular, peers.
This is extremely evident in the case of Netflix’s Fate: The Winx Saga. The teen drama was a live-action adaptation of the popular cartoon, Winx Club. When viewers were given the first look into the series, it was bombarded with negative feedback. Fans of the original animated series accused the showrunners of ridding the Netflix adaption of everything that made Winx Club what it was: the Y2K-inspired fashion, bright colors, and fun plot.
Additionally, the show whitewashed the Asian character, Musa, and replaced the racially ambiguous Flora with a brand new white character, Terra. Although, Flora was eventually added to the show in its second season. Curious to see just how ‘bad’ Fate would turn out, many tuned into the show once it premiered on Jan. 22, 2021. With high viewership, it was renewed for a second season which premiered on Sep. 16. The second season was well-received by its audience. But, those who were no longer interested in the show failed to tune in, causing a drop in views. As a result, Netflix canceled the show not even two months after the season premiered.
With most of our efforts going to shows we hate, it’s safe to say that hate-watching is transforming the TV world. Controversy fills the pockets of streaming services and viewers are forced to watch as some of the greatest additions to film history get tossed aside for the sake of maintaining as many views as possible. Still, entertainment is the most important part of what you watch. Regardless of whether you think the show you’re watching is a good one, as long as you’re having a fun time, does it matter?