let me preface this by saying i am a cinephile’s nightmare. i’m generally bad at consuming any audiovisual media, because i hate that i have to go at the pace of the media (rather than be able to skim or read quickly like i would with text or purely visual matter). it’s a level of concentration i can’t muster most days unless i have a good reason to. i also have an obsessive personality, so if i watched too many good movies in a row, i would probably go insane.
as a result, i consume a lot of lighthearted stuff, or rewatch things i saw during childhood/adolescence that i can play in the background for comfort so i don’t have to take in anything new. i’m trying to expand the range of things i’ll see these days, but ultimately i am a creature of comfort.
preferences
stuff i’m drawn to
- COMEDY
- modern settings
- character > plot
- fun ensembles
- family
- anything with a cute guy[^1] or cute ship i can fixate on
- asian rep
- musical numbers
- for cartoons: i prefer story-driven cartoons in general, but prefer their contained episodes/one-shots to the plot-heavy ones. the pickiest cartoon enjoyer alive
stuff i usually avoid
- sci-fi
- fantasy
- anything too serious or dramatic
- anything that looks like it’s set somewhere covered only in dust and dirt
- cheesy romances
- isekai
- things with lots of specific terminology
- historical series
- superhero stuff
- horror
- anything too long…
watching habits
- i will say i like a movie/show if it’s a) one i watched 10000 times or b) one that i remember really enjoying even though i never watched it again.
- i will watch episodes of a show i like 10000 times over many moons and not touch anything else in my queue
- i will watch horrible movies and shows if they have an actor i like and said actor is vaguely cute in it
- i usually just play shows in the background while i draw – i cannot watch most anime or shows in other languages for this reason. my language skills are Not Good Enough for that
- some shows and pretty much all anime are “eating shows”, which i only watch when i eat alone (rare) and i will stop them as soon as i’m done eating to do something else
- most movies i don’t see in cinemas are “eating movies” and i’ll stop them midwatch as well
- i avoid watching with other people (if not in the cinema) because their presence forces me to finish the movie even when i no longer want to be watching it…
- in general, watching a movie must be an EVENT. i like going to the cinema and making a whole thing of it. if a movie is not in cinemas, it will take me 10000 years to watch it, because at home i will do literally anything else.
see also
[^1]: definition of cute guy is EXTREMELY LOOSE