Just Hanging Out

Some thoughts on what's driving TV nostalgia amongst young viewers

Our latest podcast episode discussed the surprising popularity of old, long-running TV series among younger viewers. Shows like Friends, Seinfeld, One Tree Hill, Grey, and The Office are big hits with Gen Z.?

I first noticed this trend with my teenage children. They'd watch long-running old series like The OC, Friends, and The Office. They'd binge-watch these shows on their various mobile devices. In a possibly futile attempt to occasionally drag their attention away from their screen, I'd ask what they were watching, and it would invariably be something like, 'Oh, episode 8, season 12 of Grey's' or 'I'm halfway through season seven of Gilmore Girls'.?

I would double-take at this, but it turns out my children's media consumption is pretty typical of their age group.?Global surveys show that Gen Z is driving these trends, with over a third being nostalgic for the Nineties despite most being born in the noughties. This sense of nostalgia, shared by many of us, is a powerful force that draws them to these old TV series.?

So what's that about? I have a few hunches.?

Why does Gen Z love old TV series?

1. There's a strong desire for the familiar and the comforting. The present and the future might be uncertain and forbidding, while the past, represented by these old TV series, is safe and known.?
2. The production quality of these shows is pretty high—they are often shot on film with well-written scripts and able casts.?
3. Many ran for many seasons because the?economics of TV at the time were geared toward syndication. They needed around 100 episodes to hit the jackpot.?A viewer picking up one of these shows now is immediately assured that they won't run out of episodes to watch too quickly.?The irony is that the old TV system provided the conditions to create the type of long running shows that are proving super popular on streaming platforms, but paradoxically difficult for those streaming platforms to produce themselves.

The Hang-Out factor.?

There's something in all of this, but I think an under-appreciated factor is that many of these shows have what I call a 'hang out' quality. I borrow this idea from something the director Quentin Tarantino said when he referred to the movie Richard Linklater’s DAZED & CONFUSED as a fantastic ‘hang-out movie’. He meant that the film was low on plot but high on character and a sense of place. It was the type of movie with characters the audience likes to 'hang out' with and come back to time and time again. Similarly, these TV shows, like Friends, Seinfeld, and The Office, didn’t need to focus as much on plot and could take their time to introduce and build character.?

Forget the algorithm; remember the characters.

The producers of these older shows focused on creating characters the audience loved. They didn't feel they had to pack every second with incidents and plot for fear that a viewer might switch off and their show would be punished by the algorithm. Famously, Seinfeld didn't do great business in its first season or second season, but the broadcaster gave it time to develop and for the audience to grow to love the characters.

Children's Hang Out shows.

The characters in Friends and Seinfeld draw audiences to those shows; they're like old pals we know well and enjoy hanging out with.. And of course, we have hang-out programmes for children's TV too.?PEPPA PIG,?BEN & HOLLY LITTLE KINGDOM, and?BOB THE BUILDER?are all what I would call hang-out shows, and?BLUEY?might be the perfect hang-out series (which could partly explain the show's unlikely popularity amongst Gen Z).?Like a great sitcom,?BLUEY?is grounded in well-observed situations and funny, relatable characters dealing with dilemmas familiar to families everywhere. These are all classic ingredients of a great ‘hang out’ series.

Relax and hang for a while.?

I wonder if the algorithm has created a culture of anxiety amongst producers.?If we're going to recreate the success of that golden age of TV, maybe should we let shows relax and?breath?a?bit?