Have you ever continued to watch a TV show even though you thought it was bad? Something that irritated you or made you cringe, and yet, you couldn’t turn it off?
This is what the movie critic Alissa Wilkinson calls a “hate-watch.” In “I ❤️ a Hate-Watch. Don’t You?” she explains:
Hate-watching is a weird thing. There is so much to see, do, hear, read: Why spend precious time, in an age of nearly infinite media, plopped in front of a bad show to pick it apart? It’s like gorging yourself on a disgusting meal not because you’re hungry, but because you want to gripe about it later. Or taking a vacation with someone you find excruciating, not because you don’t have any actual friends, but because you want to bellyache afterward about all the stupid things they said and did.
Yet hate-watching is now part of the cultural conversation and arguably contemporary life. Chalk it up to morbid curiosity: We start watching a show because it looks appealing, but we keep watching because we want to complain about it at happy hour. It’s fun to be the person who describes a particularly terrible story arc or performance to our friends’ disbelief. Besides, it’s better than whatever is on the news.
I’m not talking about guilty pleasures here. This isn’t entertainment that we know is bad but that scratches some indefinable itch — your “Love Islands,” your “Girl Meets Worlds.” You could hate-watch those shows, I suppose, but what’s the point? They’re too good-natured to merit a tongue-lashing. It feels mean, and unnecessary.
No, you can only hate-watch a show that you theoretically should have loved — entertainment the algorithm pushed at you because it aligns with your tastes, an offering with a modicum of ambition behind it. It doesn’t even have to be a “watch” at all. You can hate-read books (better yet, a series of books), hate-listen to a maddening podcast, hate-scroll a social media feed that makes you stabby with superiority. But television is particularly well suited to this behavior, perhaps because you can hate-watch it while hate-perusing the influencers you schaden-follow on Instagram.
In recent years, I’ve found myself hate-watching “The Gilded Age,” “Tiny Pretty Things,” “The Morning Show,” “And Just Like That …” and, of course, “Emily in Paris.” That final one, a Netflix extravaganza of stereotypes and bafflement, is now embarking upon its mind-boggling fourth season of chronicling the goofy adventures of a peppy young American abroad. She’s supposed to be endearing, I think? (Yes, I’ve watched every episode.)
Ms. Wilkinson also speaks to the downsides of the habit: