Ritual, Comfort and Quality Time: Why I Still Value Trashy TV
If you’ve ever been sucked into the neon pink flush of a Love Island obsession — eagerly or reluctantly — its opening credits will be hardwired into your brain. A bouncy theme tune that, in any other setting, would feel completely generic. Maybe even annoying. A dance beat backdrop for a food delivery service ad. But you sink into your sofa and it sounds like comfort and the promise of low-stakes, high-drama romance, sparking a dopamine hit like your favourite song.
Patron saint of high-drama romance John Green once wrote of falling in love like you would fall asleep: “slowly and then all at once”. Getting sucked into a series of Love Island is no different. Between the big feelings and tiny outfits, we're hooked not only by emotional attachment to relationships and circular ‘what are we?’ chats, but the ritual and routine of sitting down to watch them.
It’s no news that reality TV provides a kind of mind-numbing escapism. See: Rue in Euphoria season one episode seven, and the widely accepted fact that engaging with it — and social media and anything under the 'screen time’ umbrella — releases dopamine in our brains. In a world saturated with perceived ‘trashy’ content from Netflix to TikTok, finding pleasure in the rush, at least in excess, is overwhelmingly presented negatively. Passive consumption is pitched against entertainment demanding critical thought or imagination, often even associated with lower cognitive ability.
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The narrative flourished well before the algorithms and influencers. Take TV dinners, portrayals of which in popular culture have been historically negative. In Danny DeVito’s Matilda, gaudy gameshows and gauche dinner trays are used to not only indicate differences in intelligence and taste, but a disjointed family dynamic. Parking ourselves in front of a screen for the evening has been linked to health issues, and watching while eating associated with a lower quality diet — a narrative often underpinned by perceptions of class.
Distraction during meals has been vilified by aesthetic wellness narratives on TikTok too. Toxic glow up culture, rigid ‘what I eat in a day’ videos and mindful eating, Emily Mariko-style, are lauded over checking out mentally to hot strangers navigating power dynamics and the mundane. But while these narratives rightfully centre the value of communication and presence, they overlook how connection can be cultivated through any shared experience — even if it’s a ‘passive’ one.
We see it in our living rooms, in pubs; we see it on Twitter. Love Island, Selling Sunset and Keeping Up With The Kardashians spark connection and conversation. They provide common ground in tipsy exchanges with strangers; they fuel half-lucid commentary with loved ones in a way that can write itself into our shared language. Unguarded in domesticity, we find moments of intimacy in our living rooms — silently watching, fiercely debating, laughing uncontrollably. We find those moments with family, old friends, new flatmates, partners, potential partners. I’ve been disarmed by ‘Netflix and chill’, I’ve shrugged off difficult days getting lost in on-screen lives, and I’ve bonded with the most important people in my life cultivating our own shared vocabulary of characters and scenes.
Since we were old enough to balance our plates on our laps, my sister and I ate our tea watching the telly, and stayed put into the night. Sometimes it was soaps — Corrie into EastEnders as we moved from our mains to dessert. That new series that aired after our bedtime, dutifully recorded the night before. A schedule determined by the day of the week and the time of day. TOWIE Tuesday. Strictly Saturday. 9pm. A routine.
More often than not we’d settle on well-loved favourites, which became reference points for our shared sense of humour and identity as a family. One summer in Spain, we quoted Benidorm for a week straight. Short of things to say eating out, we’d reel off memorised lines. When dramas proved divisive, reality and comedy were king. Gogglebox and Gavin and Stacey felt like a framework for how families really were, and were always worth more than a sluggish rewatch on Christmas Day.
“Telly, the mindless the better, acted not as an isolating and IQ-rotting pastime, but a means of connecting with myself and those around me.”
Even background entertainment provided relief — in escapism, in familiarity, in comfy sofas and a complete lack of pressure after a heavy day of hormonal acne and GCSE PE. But despite this reliable alleviation, sometimes it was accompanied by envy. The families that seemed, from the outside at least, the closest and most sophisticated only ate from their sofas on Saturday nights or special occasions. Instead they rallied round one table, conversation sprawling from politics to homework. As a teenager hating being a teenager, I’d resent myself for wanting to watch telly over talking full stop.
But towards the end of our after school TV years, my sister was diagnosed with an eating disorder. Evenings at home changed for us as they changed for her incomprehensibly, and it was rare for us to find the same frenzied delight in picking what to watch. While she’s lived in hospitals, it’s been rare for us to be able to share a sofa together at all. What stayed was that shared language of our favourite shows and the solace we found in them. Conversations punctuated with niche references, finishing each other’s sentences with lines still committed to memory. A series that signifies one specific summer. Nostalgia for that first watch and for who we were at the time. Finding comedic relief in unconventional family setups on-screen. Finding comfort in sitting down, cities apart, with a new episode and feeling her presence in its punchlines.
Away from friends during lockdown, I had the same experience. We shared thirsty Normal People memes, dissected Selling Sunset fights, analysed shifting Kardashians dynamics in WhatsApp group chats and played who would be who, Real Housewives edition. My mum regularly texted reality TV episode updates, connecting with not just me, but what life might look like — it rarely did — for my generation. Even back living with my parents, the long days were punctuated with a return to keeping up with Coronation Street. Telly, the mindless the better, acted not as an isolating and IQ-rotting pastime, but a means of connecting with myself and those around me.
As Love Island returns this year in its predictable format, many of us are watching with new friends, new flatmates, new partners, partners we’ve married now. We work the show into new weekly routines, making space for moments of indulgence together or for ourselves. Some of us are nostalgic for ‘old Love Island’ — what the world was like then, the summers we miss and the people we shared it with. Like the shows I watched with my sister growing up, seasons are tied to obscure feelings and trigger memories forgotten, and one day this one will too.
As the discourse snowballs around the show again — including ongoing and necessary criticism from its casting to its ethics — it feels as important as ever to think critically about its content and social influence. But the ritual of tuning in to watch something together, and tuning out our own lives, is not something to stubbornly vilify. Whilst I still long for the day my family sits around a table again and now, more than ever, don't underestimate the value of quality time with them, who says watching trashy TV together isn’t?
Words: Rosie Byers
