The Trap of the Comfort Watch
A still from Kota Factory (2019)
In times of stress and anxiety, why do many of us choose the familiarity of a ‘comfort watch’—of familiar shows, plotlines, and characters? Raj Darji explores a sense of loss among abundance.
In 2020, I was appearing for my board exams, when the COVID-19 lockdown was imposed in India. The nation-wide shutdowns led to the cancellation of our final paper, Geography. In the following months, I remember waiting for updates on my exams and results with uncertainty and impatience.
It was around this phase that I recall watching—and rewatching—the first season of Netflix series Kota Factory (2019). Whenever a certain hint or speculation was put out in the public domain regarding results, I used to immediately look up to Kota Factory to prepare myself and deal with the anxieties that awaited ahead. I resonated with Vaibhav (Mayur More), a new student coming to Kota, and the challenges he faced. I shared his sense of loss among abundance, eventually finding ease through his journey as he began to feel settled.
I experienced the same sense of belonging while watching the Irish TV series Normal People (2020) a few years later. The world was returning to normalcy. The local train was back on track and gushed with people as usual. Though the dread associated with touch was gently cruising away, everyone felt bottled in their created circles of distance. My junior college was over, and I was clueless about where the time had slipped.
Like Connell (Paul Mescal) and Marianne (Daisy Edgar-Jones) in the series, I struggled to communicate my ambiguous feelings. I couldn’t find the right words to express how difficult it was to move on with life, forgetting the pandemic ever happened and we were locked inside our house for months. While they could not always convey their feelings in words, they remained present whenever the other person needed them the most, even though they could not stay forever with each other. Their dynamic filled me with both hope and despair.
‘Comfort’ viewing is generally associated with the habit of viewing specific movies, television serials, long-format shows, or some other form of entertainment content to channel one’s emotions, derive relief, and find an escape from overwhelming and stressful episodes of life.
A few more calendars flipped, and one afternoon almost five years since the first lockdown, I found myself strangely returning to a show from my childhood, Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah (2008). It has been running for more than 16 years, and I found the old episodes still thoroughly enjoyable. I have already seen most of them countless times; I am aware of almost every twist and turn in the storyline and sometimes of the impending joke. Yet, it was fulfilling to see the different characters go up against each other over trivial matters.
In the past, I never thought so deeply about my viewing habits as I always made a conscious effort to watch something new. However, subconsciously, I developed a few biases over time, rewatching films and series from the past and noticing a peculiar dependence when I failed to withdraw from certain familiar stories and characters. The realization left me a bit critical of myself. This urge to seek comfort in fictional characters and narratives made me uncomfortable and forced me to question the concept of ‘Comfort Watch.’
‘Comfort’ viewing is generally associated with the habit of watching specific movies, television serials, long-format shows, or some other form of entertainment content to channel one’s emotions, derive relief, and find an escape from overwhelming and stressful episodes of life. It underlines how people use media for their emotional and escape needs as put forth by the Uses and Gratification media theory. In a 2023 survey conducted by CableTV of 1000 citizens in America, they found out around 87 per cent of their respondents had a ‘comfort’ show. Also, it brought to the forefront that 70 per cent of them watched those shows when dealing with external stressors of life.
This tendency saw a great peak during COVID-19, as highlighted by Nielsen in their report analyzing the spike in viewership of nostalgic comedy shows in 2021. Originally broadcast on television, many such shows found new ground on streaming platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime, and JioHotstar (formerly Disney+ Hotstar), leading to new audiences and expanded viewership. For example, The Office (U.S.) became the most streamed acquired series on OTT, with consumers watching it for more than 57 billion minutes. At the same time, it garnered a viewership of 30 billion on traditional television.
Similarly, in India, a 2021 report by MICA and Communications Craft claimed that 450 million Indian entertainment consumers spent 4.6 hours per day on their smartphones. According to their research, 29 million subscribers paid for 53 million OTT video subscriptions in 2020. This rise in demand for streaming platforms could be observed right from the beginning of COVID-19 in India since the subscriber base grew drastically from 22 million in March 2020 to 27 million by the end of April 2020, as published by Statista. Plus, as per a survey conducted by the Times of India, around 75 per cent of their respondents watched comedy content on the OTT platform in 2021.
However, generalizing or overlapping comedy with comfort viewing would be an overstatement. The diversity in terms of individual experience and exposure often results in different interpretations of art and human choices. In a survey, CableTV discovered that the top comfort shows among their respondents in the United States were Friends, The Office (both comedies) and Star Trek (drama/sci-fi). Hence, the definition of a comfort watch varies from person to person. But the real question stands: what creates this reliance on a predictable, watching (or rewatching) experience?
Psychology professor Robert N. Kraft enlists many reasons for this phenomenon, like the Mere Exposure Effect, the Principle of Least Effort, and the Conjuring Effect, which overall underscores the sense of familiarity and clarity as an integral reason. Kraft also touched upon emotional aspects like therapeutic nostalgia and awareness of our growth, where the role of fond experiences and an evolved sensibility takes center-stage. Among his many notes, two observations stood out for me: the paradox of choices and parasocial relationships.
The access to abundant information right at the fingertips has overburdened us. According to The Empowered Consumer report by Accenture, 74 per cent of consumers walked away from purchases simply because they felt overwhelmed towards the end of 2023. In a survey that spanned 19,000 consumers across 12 countries, Accenture found that 73 per cent of respondents felt drained by the availability of choices.
The same dilemma exists in line with content available to watch for the audience, as there are several mediums available today. From movie theatres and broadcasting channels to streaming services and digital media platforms, each is trying to hold the audience’s attention by increasing offerings with the release of newer films, web series, and reality shows, week in and week out. It has been backed via research by Jack Caporal for The Motley Fool, as 62 per cent of their 2000 surveyed American respondents in 2024 believed there were far too many streaming options.
This is a complex cycle, an anxiety of uncertainties, that lead us to rely on something familiar in the form of a comfort watch. Slowly, parasocial relationships are formed, as before one understands, our bond with these fictional narratives and characters becomes predominant over those in our ‘real’ life.
As per recent reports, the audience in India is facing similar fatigue with the rise of multiple platforms and services. The total time spent on streaming apps has dropped from 25.9 billion hours in 2023 to 21.7 billion hours in 2024. On the contrary, the total hours spent on social media apps has continued to grow, touching 800 billion hours in 2024 compared to 700 billion hours in 2023. It has become difficult to retain subscribers as there is a plethora of options and an iota of attention span. Additionally, there is a steep decline in newer and original storytelling, which becomes apparent when we observe the number of old films re-releasing in theatres every month, and the presence of familiar old titles in the streaming platform’s list of trending shows and movies.
I, too, have been guilty of scrolling through different streaming platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime, and JioHotstar for hours, but this has not always resulted in me finding and watching something new. Rather, I have either opted for a reliable option or decided to watch nothing because of the tiresome process and the need to choose from a hurricane of alternatives. I doubt if I am alone in this loop.
This is a complex cycle, an anxiety of uncertainties, that lead us to rely on something familiar in the form of a comfort watch. The same dependence, however, further becomes the root cause of seclusion from society, and seeds inevitable guilt in human beings. Slowly, parasocial relationships are formed, as before one understands, our bond with these fictional narratives and characters becomes predominant over those in our ‘real’ life.
In a conversation with Mitali Shah for Harper’s Bazaar India, counseling psychologist Dr. Nisha Khanna emphasized how we conform to the satisfaction obtained from viewing one’s comfort watch. “Watching the same shows over and over again brings some sort of safety and comfort on a permanent level,” Khanna said. “It instils a sense of security, warmth, or wellbeing.”
Despite understanding these patterns and the subsequent consequences, I know my connection won’t fade away with the shows and characters I mentioned in the beginning. To be honest, there are many more of them, like watching Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! (1994) and Hum Saath - Saath Hain (1999) almost every Sunday on Zee Cinema, because they constitute my first memory of being enamored by cinema as a kid. There is my evolving relationship with Rockstar by Imtiaz Ali and its protagonist ‘Janardan’ a.k.a. ‘Jordan’ over the years. Or sometimes, I’ve simply wanted to watch the world to burn after seeing the auditorium sequence in Pyaasa (1957) for the first time.
I will share an intimate connection with these moments because of the nostalgia and memories associated with them. However, I need to be mindful that Vaibhav, Jordan, Connell and Marriane, or the cast of Taarak Mehta… cannot be an alternative to the interpersonal relationships I have with the real people in my life. The World Health Organisation [WHO] has identified loneliness as a pressing health threat, with its far-reaching impact in India, too. While I agree and often resort to the notion of temporary escapes provided by my comfort watches, I am aware that they weren’t intended to be a replacement for our fading human connections.
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Raj Darji is a budding writer from Mumbai. He loves thinking (and overthinking) about movies, web series, and popular culture. His work has appeared in Rolling Stone India and The Punch Magazine. You can find him on Instagram: @_one.of.you.
