Everyone has hobbies that they love. Some love sports, some love crocheting, and others find joy in their own unique hobbies.
Me? I find the most comfort and joy in rewatching a show or movie I’ve seen a million times. To me, there is no feeling like wrapping up in a blanket and watching a show that I don’t have to look up the spoilers for – not because I’m not a chronic spoiler-checker, but because I already looked them up five watches ago.
I know this might sound odd to some people. Plenty of people love the thrill of watching a show for the very first time. I mean the saying “I wish I could watch it for the first time again” is a saying for a reason.
Don’t get me wrong – I love discovering a hidden gem of a show too. But once I find one, it usually stays with me for a pretty long time. And after that, a few months or years later, when I remember it exists, the pattern repeats and it’s a comfort show all over again.
A new show means the hassle of looking up spoilers every time I think something bad might happen. Rewatching means knowing what’s going to happen, and that everything will be okay (or not okay if you’re into those shows).
If you’d ask my boyfriend or certain family members they’d say I’m crazy. Just last week they would receive snapchats and texts about how sad I was that I was finishing my new show, Desperate Housewives, just to get a text that the second I had finished the finale, I scrolled right to Season One, Episode One again.
Desperate Housewives is just my current rewatch, there’s probably about 20 shows (at least) that I rewatch over and over and over again. When you know you’ve struck gold, you have to make sure you really appreciate it- even if that means appreciating it a few times just to be sure.
And I know I’m not the only one. Comfort shows are basically a cultural phenomenon. Maybe not everyone rewatches all their shows four or five times just for the fun of it, but I guarantee most people have at least one show that they go to when they need a good laugh, a good cry, or just something background noise while they eat (it’s okay if you do, I do that too).
It’s okay to seek comfort in the familiar, it’s one of the most common human traits. So a snack, turn on that same show you’ve already seen, and enjoy it.