Exploring Viewers’ Experiences of ‘Series Fatigue’

Abstract

Streaming services may be thriving, but some viewers become increasingly critical of serial content and the way it is presented and distributed. This article addresses the phenomenon of ‘series fatigue,’ which has become common with recipients who encounter an unmanageable abundance of consumable material online. Despite the positively perceived emancipation from linear television, opaque platform dynamics create new requirements for self-organization and management of leisure media consumption. Accordingly, overwhelmed viewers state that watching TV and streaming-based series has started to feel like work. Many also criticize that the premature cancellation of series has become an all too regular experience, while others feel patronized by the platforms’ experimenting with no-binge release schedules. The traditionally strained fan-producer relationship is thus further complicated by powerful third parties: platforms that act as distributors and curators and thus ultimately gatekeepers of content.

This qualitative, exploratory, and collaborative study from Denmark and Germany brings to light various facets of ‘series fatigue,’ drawing on qualitative interviews with a sample of students and scholars in which their experiences of series fatigue as well as their coping strategies come to light. It also extrapolates possible consequences for fan cultural media consumption in the age of platform capitalism: The sheer amount of available content may lead to people falling out of love with series more quickly or not becoming fans in the first place but rather sticking to a more superficial or distracted viewing mode associated with non-fans. As recommendation-based streaming platforms seem to encourage individual binge-watching (cf. Lickhardt 2024) and “cyclical fandom” (Hills 2005) rather than socially-oriented and ritualized viewing practices, the future of fandom as a collective activity and experience seems to be called into question.