The harsh reality of television binging

Let me walk you through it.

It started out innocently enough with a friend boasting about the “great new TV show” he had just discovered. Sweeping his hands out as though to indicate that my dingy little dorm room was meant to be the elaborate stage for this TV drama, he described the world that would become the sole focus of my life not a day later as best he could. (If I don’t recover from these feelings, and if he’s out there, I just want him to know that he is responsible for my torment. You tempted me and I partook in the poison. If I go down, I am taking you with me.)

So letting myself be foolishly led along by an interesting plot summary, I agreed to take a look and try out this new television series without realizing that this simple act would lose me hours of my life and all the sleep I had been planning to get that fateful school night. So much just kept happening. How was I to know it would be impossible to drag myself away? Episode after episode played, each taunting me with cliffhangers that forced me to tell Netflix, “Yes I am still watching, now stop judging me.” How can I stop when Jaime is so mad at Doug? What if they break up? How am I supposed to just sleep with that kind of possibility hanging over me all night? And so I trekked on, deeper into the night, let myself be carried further and further into the lives of these people I had never met and watched until the lines between reality and reality TV began to blur.

Almost half a day later I sit here unmoved with my arms and legs tingling as I begin to regain feeling in my extremities. Utterly drained, I wait for my alarm to go off, for that shrill cry of failure to ring through my room and force me to face the cold reality. I still have reading left to do before my first class.

As prominent as Netflix culture is I can only imagine how many people must have fallen to such a foe. Increasingly often these days I hear about, “that poor college student, so young and so completely wiped out after his last Narcos binge.” And now I have joined my fallen brethren. A moment of silence please.

Those of you out there with eyes not reddened by computer screens and who have never had their hearts fill with despair as the sun rises outside their window, heed this warning. Do not be tempted by the false promises of fun and “only one more episode.” Let pop culture not sway your heart. Hold fast to the beliefs that you are a responsible adult who needs at least eight hours of sleep before a calculus midterm and that you are strong enough to resist the temptation of reality television. And those of you who have also given in and understand what it feels like, have seen the depths of humanity and somehow returned — do you have any show suggestions? I just finished my last one.