Binge Watching/Reading - My Favorite Vice

With the advent of streaming services like Netflix, Prime, HBO, Showtime, AppleTV+, to name a few, many of us have indulged in the guilty pleasure of watching entire series of TV shows in only a few sittings. Maybe even one sitting since shows often only offer 8-10 episodes per season. We find ourselves so entranced that we have to watch just one more episode, then another, and then another, until before we know it, it’s five o’clock in the morning and time to get ready for work. 

My first binge watch was in the early 2000s, way before streaming services, when all I had was a TV antenna that barely worked and a DVD player. Someone gave me the Sex and the City box set on DVD as a gift and I could not stop watching. 

My cat could easily spend days watching Movies for Cats on Amazon Prime.

I recently saw an article about a streaming service that is offering $2400 for someone who will watch 24 hours of true-crime, and document the whole thing on social media.

Get Paid $2400 to Spend the Day Watching True Crime Shows 

This sounds right up my alley! What could be better than watching true crime mysteries for an entire day? Drilling down further, it looks like they will only be offering this to one person and will let that individual watch the 24 hours of true crime shows within a 48-hour time period. How merciful of them! I don’t think I will apply since I have a 9-5 day job that might interfere, and my social media presence would not make the cut!

Of course, binging can also apply to reading. Even before the pandemic, when I had a much more active social life, one of my favorite things to do on a Saturday and/or Sunday was to stay home and read a book/books for hours on end, staying up into the wee hours of the night (although as I get older, I find that I fall asleep against my will as I struggle to keep my eyes open to read just one more page). 

I try to space out book series that I love so as not to finish them too soon and have to say goodbye to beloved characters to whom I have grown attached. But it’s hard not to read one book after another in a series that you love. My favorite books are mysteries - I am drawn to cozies, police procedurals, and English detective novels, although I can easily get sucked into a good true crime book. During the pandemic I have been binging Agatha Christie and have made my way through most of her series and stand-alones. 

Do you binge watch or read? If so, what series of shows or books do you like best? Could you watch 24 hours of true crime in 48 hours?

Angela Crider Neary is an attorney by day and writer by night. She is an avid mystery reader and especially enjoys reading novels set in interesting locales. She was inspired to write her first mystery novella, Li'l Tom and the Pussyfoot Detective Bureau: The Case of the Parrots Desaparecidos, by one of her favorite areas in San Francisco, Telegraph Hill.  Her second book, Li'l Tom and the Case of the New Year Dragon is now available.  To learn more, visit her on Facebook and Amazon.