Online watch parties, which allow users in separate places to watch the same thing via computer have become the new trend in streaming this year. Many services are rolling out the feature which seems geared towards getting people together without having them in the same place at the same time. When I heard of the idea I just didn’t get it. I have gotten so used to watching TV in the modern world where I choose what I want to watch, when I want to watch it, and further more stop watching when I want to and come back when I want to. So in general that doesn’t lend itself to watching things at the same time with others, much less a group. But forgot what it was like to be a teenager. My own young teenager reminded me.
When I was 12-15 one of my regular rituals was watching David Letterman on CBS with a close friend of mine. Just so we could laugh at the same jokes together, I used to watch random shows like The Littlest Hobo with another friend just to sort of make fun of it. When my daughter asked my wife and I if we thought it would be ok to watch Nightmare on Elm Street with her friends online it hit me. It’s all about syncing up.
When people in my generation watched anything at the same time as another person we were always seeing the exact same broadcast the same way. Pretty much all of us had cable TV through the same provider so we even accessed things the same way. Turn it to channel 5, Saturday Night Live is on 28. But now, while that is possible it is certainly less predictable. Some folks still have cable. But if you are a cord cutting family there is no telling what kind of service you use, what kind of equipment you use, whether your Internet will stutter and so on. This is why watch parties work so well in these times. I never tried to watch movies on the VCR at the same time as someone else bc it would have required both of us or more to have the same video to watch and all of us pressing play at the same time like some kind of nuclear weapons team. But that problem is non existent with watch parties.
During this period where my daughter has not had sleepovers, birthday parties and other things to do with people her own age she has had a computer, Discord chat rooms, Google hangouts and things like that. And because of this they are able to choose a person to get things rolling and sync. If it’s been forever since you have done something like that just think of this past election night. I was part of a zoom meeting with multiple family members watching election results when we were used to gathering in a living room almost Super Bowl party style. But everyone was watching from a different kind of system. In turn everyone was hearing things at different times. I thought of my daughter and said gosh, if we were all watching this on Sling TV and syncing it would be so much more fun. Election night was not really fun for anyone in the end but it sure would have been nice to not hear reports 45 seconds off from what I was seeing on my screen.
Watch parties may not ever take off big for old folks (42) like me. Most of the time I don’t care whether anyone else wants to watch Press Your Luck on Hulu or Black Mirror on Netflix. That’s my time. But for the more socially minded crowd looking to connect to peers I think watch parties can have a big future. Whether they are watching “classic” horror from the 1980s or modern day anime together this is the only way that modern teens can enjoy something at the same time. And lucky them it doesn’t matter what is on channel 5 anymore.
Stream on my friends.
