Welcome to the Era of Junk Food TV歡迎來到垃圾食品式電視時代

It’s not good for you， but you can’t stop watching.

它對你毫無益處，可你還是忍不住看下去。

It happens all the time. I’m on the couch， staring at a screen， waiting for something to catch my eye. Before I know it， the sun has long since set， and I’ve spent hours mindlessly watching content just entertaining enough to hold my attention.

這樣的事常有發(fā)生。我癱在沙發(fā)上，盯著屏幕，等著有什么讓我眼前一亮。等我回過神來，太陽早就落山了，而我已經(jīng)不動腦子地看了好幾個鐘頭勉強吸引我關(guān)注的娛樂內(nèi)容。

No， I wasn’t scrolling my TikTok For You page or YouTube Shorts—I was watching television.

不，我不是在刷自己的TikTok推薦頁面，也不是在看YouTube短視頻——我是在看電視。

These days， viewers are wasting an inordinate amount of time with shows they recognize aren’t good， interesting， or even enjoyable—and afterward， feeling unmoved or even guilty for rotting away on the sofa. （An elevated form of bed rot， if you will.） While many are used to experiencing social media this way， it’s starting to apply to how we consume Hollywood entertainment， too.

如今，觀眾們明知道有些節(jié)目不好看、沒意思也不賞心悅目，卻浪費了太多的時間去看——過后感覺毫無觸動，還為自己在沙發(fā)上擺爛感到慚愧。（也可以說是“在床上擺爛”的升級版。）雖然很多人已經(jīng)習(xí)慣用這種方式體驗社交媒體，但這也開始滲透到我們收看好萊塢娛樂節(jié)目的方式中。

“It’s like， you get this bag of chips， and it’s your favorite flavor， but you open the bag， and most of it is air， and there’s only this little bit at the bottom. You’re left wanting more， and there’s just nothing else there，” says TV critic Kit Stone. “And so then you wonder， like， what was the point？” Welcome to the era of junk food TV.

“這就好比你拿到這包薯片，是你最喜歡的口味，可你打開袋子一看，里面大部分都是空氣，只有底下有一點薯片。你還想要更多的薯片，可是袋子里什么都沒有了。”電視評論人士基特·斯通說，“于是你就會想，這有什么意義呢？”歡迎來到“垃圾食品式電視”的時代。

While there’s always been trash TV （exploitative， overly melodramatic）， comfort TV （older， nostalgic）， and more recently， mid TV （highly produced but lackluster）， junk food TV is distinguished by how it’s consumed： It’s the shows， new and old， that are served to you by an algorithm trained on your past preferences， and auto-played at every possible juncture， like the enticing candy section at practically every store’s checkout aisle.

雖然向來有“垃圾電視”（獵奇炒作，過度煽情）、“治愈電視”（老派懷舊）以及最近出現(xiàn)的“平庸電視”（制作精良但缺乏亮點），但是“垃圾食品式電視”的獨特之處在于其收看方式：無論是新節(jié)目還是舊節(jié)目，都是按照你的觀看偏好訓(xùn)練的算法精心調(diào)配出的內(nèi)容，在每個可能的節(jié)點自動播放，就像幾乎每家商店收銀臺旁那排誘人的糖果貨架一樣。

TikTok’s algorithm is notorious for effectively coaxing people to spend more time on it， largely by intuiting1 what users want， and streaming platforms are aiming for the same thing.

TikTok的算法以有效地誘導(dǎo)人們在平臺上花更多時間而出名，這主要是通過精準(zhǔn)揣測用戶需求來實現(xiàn)的，而流媒體平臺也在追求同樣的效果。

Netflix’s algorithms， for example， give the streamer granular insight into your TV choices， analyzing how you navigate its menus and which shows you bypassed， stopped to preview， and ultimately clicked on and watched. For instance， if you love Bridgerton and rewatched Season 2， don’t be too surprised if the new season of Heartstopper appears on your homepage with an image of Bridgerton star Jonathan Bailey to lure you in—even though his role is more of a cameo.

比如，奈飛的算法讓流媒體平臺深入洞察你的收視選擇，分析你如何瀏覽菜單，跳過了哪些節(jié)目，停下來預(yù)覽了哪些節(jié)目，以及最終點擊觀看了哪些節(jié)目。舉例來說，如果你喜愛《布里奇頓》并重溫了第二季，要是新一季的《戀愛修課》出現(xiàn)在你的主頁上，還用《布里奇頓》主演喬納森·貝利的圖片來吸引你——盡管他在劇中的角色只是客串——你不必感到太驚訝。

The stage was set for junk food TV when Netflix pioneered the model for marathon-watching， dropping full seasons instead of one episode at a time， and eliminating natural pauses like ad breaks. At first， it felt like an overabundance of quality since it coincided with the Peak TV era， which gave us prestige offerings like Mad Men and Game of Thrones. While that time has passed （The Perfect Couple is no Big Little Lies）， marathoning is still as popular as ever. People lap up shows that are easy to half-watch—or at least， they spend more time watching them， and that’s the metric the streamers are tracking.

奈飛開創(chuàng)了馬拉松式追劇模式，不再一次播出一集，而是一次放出整季內(nèi)容，取消了廣告時段這樣的自然間歇，為垃圾食品式電視的出現(xiàn)創(chuàng)造了條件。起初，這讓人有優(yōu)質(zhì)內(nèi)容泛濫的感覺，因這種播放模式恰逢“巔峰電視”時代，那時《廣告狂人》和《權(quán)力的游戲》等高水準(zhǔn)劇集頻出。雖然那個時代已經(jīng)過去（《完美伴侶》遠不如《大小謊言》），但是馬拉松式追劇方式依然深受歡迎。人們樂于觀看那些讓人可輕易一心二用的節(jié)目——至少他們在這些節(jié)目上花的時間更多，而這正是流媒體平臺追蹤的指標(biāo)。

How you spend that precious time reportedly plays a role in which shows are greenlit， renewed， or canceled. Streamers have even given notes to writers to make shows more “second screen”—“easier to follow while sending an email or scrolling through Instagram，” as Justine Bateman told the Hollywood Reporter. Sabrina Carpenter even jokes about it in her Netflix Christmas special， thanking the audience for “half-watching a big screen while scrolling through social media on a smaller screen.”

據(jù)報道，你如何打發(fā)這些寶貴的時光會影響哪些節(jié)目獲批、更新或者取消。正如賈斯廷·貝特曼告訴《好萊塢報道》記者的那樣，流媒體平臺甚至給編劇提出建議，讓內(nèi)容更適合“第二屏幕”觀看——“在發(fā)郵件或刷照片墻時也能輕松跟上劇情”。薩布麗娜·卡彭特甚至在奈飛圣誕特別節(jié)目中調(diào)侃這種現(xiàn)象，感謝觀眾“一邊三心二意地看大屏幕，一邊在小屏幕上刷社交媒體。”

This trend has only been exacerbated by TV’s increasingly short lifespan， thanks to the popularity of limited series， and the fact that most new shows are canceled after a season or two. It dissuades audiences from getting too invested in what they’re watching and ultimately incentivizes people to stick to safe options—either old， nostalgic TV or shows they don’t care about enough to get emotionally invested in. TV has become as ephemeral as the last five videos you swiped on TikTok， or the last bag of chips you forgot you already ate.

電視節(jié)目的生命周期越來越短加劇了這種趨勢，其原因是限定劇受到歡迎，以及大多數(shù)新劇播出一兩季后就會取消的現(xiàn)實。這使得觀眾不愿意對觀看的節(jié)目投入太多感情，最終促使人們做出穩(wěn)妥的選擇——不是重溫懷舊老劇，就是觀看他們不怎么關(guān)心、無需投入感情的節(jié)目。電視節(jié)目變得猶如過眼煙云，就像你在TikTok上剛刷過的五個視頻，或者你忘了自己剛吃過的那包薯片。

The secret is that as much as viewers are teaching platforms about their tastes， the platforms are also training audiences. It ties in with the “revealed preference” theory—consumers reveal their true preferences by their purchasing habits， not what they declare their tastes to be. In other words， I wouldn’t say my choice to watch hours of [redacted reality show] reflects my tastes， but if I looked at the amount of time I spent watching quality shows lately， well…

奧秘在于，觀眾讓平臺了解自己的喜好，平臺也在訓(xùn)練觀眾的口味。這與“顯示性偏好”理論不謀而合——揭示消費者真實偏好的是其購買習(xí)慣而非其宣稱的喜好。換句話說，我不會承認我選擇看幾個小時的刪減版真人秀節(jié)目反映了我的品味，但如果看看我最近花了多少時間觀看優(yōu)質(zhì)節(jié)目，呃……

Frankly， junk food TV is hard to resist—much like how I can’t just eat one Flamin’ Hot Cheeto. At a time when decision paralysis is a buzzword and the options are seemingly infinite， it’s enticing to know you can just sit down and hit play on the first thing on your screen. “People want to feel joy right now，” says Clara Sterling， a comedian， writer， and content creator who frequently goes viral on X2， formerly Twitter， for her thoughts on TV. “They want something that doesn’t feel like it’s so demanding， and they want to be able to just have joy and relax.”

說實話，垃圾食品式電視讓人難以抗拒——就像我不可能只吃一根熱辣奇多脆條那樣。在“決策困難”成為流行語、選擇看似無窮無盡的時代，知道你可以直接坐下來點開屏幕上第一個節(jié)目就播放，這種誘惑實在難以抵擋。“人們就想感受即時的快樂。”喜劇演員、作家、內(nèi)容創(chuàng)作者克拉拉·斯特林說，她經(jīng)常因為在電視上發(fā)表一些觀點而引起廣泛關(guān)注。“他們想看一些不太費腦子的節(jié)目，只想快樂輕松一下。”

Taking decision-making out of our hands feels like a welcoming gesture at the end of a long workday—that’s one of the biggest appeals of scrolling on social media—but that reduces TV even more to a passive experience. It leaves us with an ultra-processed TV feed， eternally playing in the background. The question is： are you still watching？

在漫長的工作日結(jié)束之后，不用我們自己來做決定，感覺像是體貼之舉——這正是刷社交媒體最大的魅力之一——但也讓電視愈發(fā)淪為被動的體驗。其結(jié)果是經(jīng)過高度加工處理的電視節(jié)目內(nèi)容，無休止地在背景中播放。問題是：你還在看嗎？

1 intuit憑直覺感到。

2指由埃隆·馬斯克收購后改造的社交平臺。它的前身是推特（Twitter）。