After having watched and analyzed the flow of NBC programming, I can’t help but make comparisons to what I see on Netflix and Hulu (my primary modes of entertainment).
I watched The Voice on NBC. It was a spicy battle round with contestants and judges I do not care about–why is Blake Shelton the last judge remaining from my childhood days of watching this show? Still, the nostalgia hit, hard. I was taken back to the days when I’d come home from school and watch this with my parents. As such, it was weird when the commercial cuts happened. I went from being completely engrossed in the show, to shell shocked when the pandemic ads came on. I didn’t turn on the TV to be constantly reminded of reality. The thing about these commercials is that viewers can tell when they are coming. After 7-10 minutes, and right before something important happens on the show. I felt like I was oscillating between dread and anticipation: I felt dread when the commercial was about to come on, and was quite ready to get back to watching the show after the commercial. While the ads were taking place, I tried to go on my phone, but something about being on the phone while watching TV feels wrong.
This is a stark contrast from Hulu, in which the commercials show up randomly because of their fixed occurrences during the show. The annoying thing about that is sometimes a commercial would take place right in the middle of when things got important. Nonetheless, Hulu ads are kind of fun to watch: “Oh neat, I’m given a choice between which Chevy scenario I’d like to see”
When the Hulu ad doesn’t capture my attention, (or rather, when the algorithm is wrong about me) I admit that it’s a lot easier to go on my phone. I’ve caught myself tapping through twitter DURING whatever it is I was watching before. It’s concerning to reflect on how short my attention span has become now that I have the show and all the social media platforms in one place at my fingertips. I often wonder if I’m even truly getting the most of laptop TV/film, because of this constant detachment I feel that doesn’t exist when I’m watching TV. Oh well, back to my show that’s running in another tab while I write this blog.
One reply on “Comparing Annoyance Felt Between TV and Hulu Ads”
This is a very interesting approach to take looking at how we watch television. It makes me wonder a couple different things, to start with the idea of harkening back to childhood nostalgia particularly in an age when the world around us seems so dreadful and hopeless we’ll do anything to escape it but the commercials keep getting in the way of that. Though many, including myself, often find the personalization of ads on the internet to be disturbing, I wonder if a select few (or even a majority I’m just not aware of) find that that aspect of the internet only adds to its appeal and their preference of it over television. Also, the idea that it feels easier or more appropriate to be on one’s phone at the same time as one is on one’s laptop vs watching traditional television is interesting. It makes me wonder if we’ve developed innate habits corresponding to different mediums.