Entertainment
Hate Watching Has Gone Too Far And Must Be Stopped, After Disney’s Shocking Early Renewal Announcement
hate watching (noun) — The practice of intentionally watching something you dislike, not to enjoy it, but to mock it, ridicule its flaws, and take pleasure in its shortcomings.
By Jonathan Klotz
| Published
It’s not a new trend, and the name for it has been around for a while, but recently the concept of “hate watching” has hit a terrifying new height that would, in a just world, cause the trend to come to a sudden end. Hate watching describes the act of watching a show or movie for the purpose of making fun of it later, usually on social media, or even in that group chat you’ve asked to be erased after your death.
The problem is that so many people decided to start hate watching Ryan Murphy’s new legal drama, All’s Fair, they helped the Kim Kardashian series become Hulu’s most-watched new scripted series. It beat out Alien Earth with 3.2 million views, and now the show, widely considered by critics and those who have actually watched it to be one of the worst shows ever made, has already been renewed for a second season.
Kim Kardashian Is Now A Network Star
Even Ryan Murphy’s best shows can be very hit-or-miss, American Horror Story has had some incredible seasons, Glee had a great first season, and the forgotten Nip/Tuck held it together for three seasons before going off the rails. All’s Fair starts crazy and keeps rocketing down the track with characters so divorced from reality that they come across as aliens. Kardashian is a “high-powered divorce lawyer” who specializes in helping women divorcing very rich men, to the point that she starts the series off kinkshaming a man to get a $200 million payout for her client, despite an existing prenup. And she’s the hero.
There’s room in the television landscape for a legal drama starring women and about the legal issues they face, but All’s Fair looks and sounds like a Real Housewives cast getting together for a horrible skit. Not even Murphy’s frequent collaborator, the always amazing Sarah Paulson, or series regulars Glenn Close and Naomi Watts can save the series. It’s a disaster, and like all disasters, there’s the urge to crane your neck and watch, but resist it. Don’t watch at all because hate watching just made Kim Kardashian a network star.
The Recent History Of Hate Watching
The last time hate-watching went too far, the result was Sony re-releasing Morbius, thinking they had a social media hit on their hands. Jared Leto bombed twice with the same movie. That’s the best possible outcome of hate-watching, but now, it’s become too big, too much of a fad, and it’s turning horrible shows into ratings hits.
Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead went from cultural juggernauts to hate watching, Tron: Ares, another Jared Leto movie, is going to go the same way once it hits streaming. And Just Like That was despised by Sex and the City fans, but enough tuned in that it received three seasons, and Zach Snyder’s Rebel Moon had such poor word of mouth that it became a modern favorite for the Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment before making the rounds on every bad movie podcast you can think of.
There’s a difference between the hate watch and the “this is so bad it’s good” mentality, because when a film is horrible, like Morbius, Madame Web, and Borderlands, it can be fun to make fun of when in a group. Bad movie podcasts are a dime a dozen, but those usually end up finding some good in even the worst films, which is why Laserblast has been praised for the puppetry. A real hate watch is when you already know you’re going to despise what you’re watching; it’s not something to laugh about with friends. You want ammunition to prove to everyone online or at the gym why 9-1-1 Nashville is one of the worst shows you’ve ever seen.
Be A Hater Don’t Hate Watch
Hate watching the final season of Game of Thrones is one thing. Still, actively consuming shows you truly despise, only to be an informed hater, is counterproductive not only for your own mental health but also because it still counts as a view for the algorithms that control our lives. True haters don’t need to be informed; they simply deem a project isn’t worth their time and move on. Every mention, every click on a reel or a short, every time a hashtag is used, it amplifies the target of your disdain.
All’s Fair is coming back for a second season, The Walking Dead spin-offs have all been renewed, and Jared Leto keeps starring in movies, and yet social media is filled with people saying they despise all three of those things, so don’t be a fake hater, don’t watch them, don’t click interviews, don’t click those headlines. Move on and leave them to remain irrelevant. That’s what real haters do.
All’s Fair is now available on Disney+ and Hulu, but you won’t be hate watching. You know better.
