The Guilty Pleasure Show

Almost everyone who watches television has at least one “guilty pleasure show”—something you find engrossing and entertaining, but at the same time you know isn’t actually good. There are plenty of good, quality television shows out there. This blog post is not about them.

This blog post is also not about guilting you about your guilty pleasure shows. Everyone’s entitled to mindless entertainment sometimes. And the guilty pleasure show has evolved into a genre all its own—one that’s been helped and cultivated by the advent of DVRs and the internet.

A guilty pleasure show is generally one you don’t want to admit to watching, so it’s not necessarily one you want to play in the middle of your living room. There’s something embarrassing about it—maybe you’re not its targeted audience, maybe it’s universally panned, maybe it’s a reality show everyone mocks—but at the same time, you don’t want to stop watching it.

There’s nothing wrong with being addicted to a bad show—entertainment doesn’t always need to be high art. Here are a few clues as to whether or not what you’re watching is really a guilty pleasure show.

1) Some element of shame or embarrassment—As mentioned, you don’t necessarily want to tell people this is appointment television for you.

2) Watching habits—Everyone has their own styles of watching television; some people love to do so with lots of people, others can’t stand the chatting company. If you’re the former, chances are there are still one or two shows you don’t want to watch in a crowd. If there's a show you consistently watch on your computer with headphones instead of among friends, it may be a guilty pleasure. (It is also possible your friends have bad taste, of course.)

3) Rationalizations—These are planned ahead of time in case someone finds out you watch the show. “I’m just watching for (actor)!” “I liked it when I was a kid!” “Hey, they’re really hot!” “The way they’re exploring X storyline is really interesting!” “Sidekick B is awesome!” All of those facts may be true, but if you're that quick to come to the defense of something, you've probably been expecting someone to attack you for it.

But hey, everyone’s entitled to their own opinion, and even if the show is terrible, there’s something that’s catching your eye. So start utilizing your guilty pleasure shows to figure out what you like about them. It’s a lot easier to find a diamond when you’re looking through a pile of crap than a pile of jewels, anyway. If a show is mostly horrid, but it has snappy dialogue, a particular quirky character, or an interesting on-going plot, you'll learn that that's a trait you like in a TV show. Guilty pleasure shows are actually really good ways to refine your tastes, so when the glut of new shows comes on in the new season, you know what you’re looking for and what shows have a good chance of being in your wheelhouse.

Besides, now when someone catches you watching a show you’re embarrassed of, you can always claim it’s research.