With the increasing use of social media to comment on the latest shows and films, there’s been a type of consumption that has been growing: hate-watching. When a show or a movie isn’t good, normally it makes us turn our brains off because we’re not as invested in the plot as we normally would be. But hate-watching creates a pull towards consuming the piece of work regardless if it is considered bad art. Hate-watching plays right into the long-standing debate of what should be categorized as good or bad art. With this debate, the line gets blurred between these two categories because the labels of “good” and “bad” are about as subjective as the whole field of art.
One recent example of this is the conversation surrounding “Euphoria” and its second season. Like the first season in 2019, “Euphoria” has been taking its viewers and the industry by storm, becoming the most tweeted-about show of the decade. However, not all of these tweets are positive, as some criticize the creator Sam Levinson and his writing ability while others critique characters or question why the show is still on air. One may think that if these users really disliked the show they would stop watching, but truthfully, we all hold the shows we hate just as close to us as the ones we love.
By holding both of these kinds of views, it speaks to the duality within us that is intrigued and curious about art we are supposed to dislike. If we truly didn’t like a show or a movie then we wouldn’t watch it at all, but sometimes we say we dislike a show as a means of being different. The mainstream media showcases what it believes to be the best art and some people like to rebel against liking what is popular. However, because these types of viewers still watch what they dislike just to say that they dislike it, the bad art actually starts to seem like good art since art is all about conversation and communicating with people.
The debate that has arisen with the second season of “Euphoria” being worse than the first season falls back into that long-standing debate about art. As a group of creatives and consumers, we want to be able to put things into categories because that makes art more digestible. Nevertheless, watching something you dislike still helps the show thrive because that show or movie will still get your viewership and money. This duality of being bad and good in different people’s eyes is how art should be consumed because art is never cut and dry. No matter how much we want to create categories for art, the point of most art like “Euphoria” is to stand outside of those boxes of just loving it or hating it.