Midlife guide to...
...binge-racing
Where have you been these past two days? Hiding from Storm Brian? No, actually – I’ve been binge-racing through last season’s Stranger Things, in prep for Winona Ryder and co’s return this week. She stole my heart in the last series.
It’s not the only thing she’s stolen, by all accounts. I’ve heard of binge-watching, but binge-racing… It’s a freshly minted term for when you watch an entire series of a new show on a video streaming site such as Netflix, Amazon or Hulu within 24 hours of its release.
And why would you do that? Surely you could just take it a week at a time and pace yourself? But then you risk someone Whatsapping you and ruining it all with spoilers. I sat through the whole seven hours of the new Gilmore Girls in Starbucks, lest one of my friends gave away the ending. It’s currently the number one show that Netflix’s own data suggests that viewers are binge-racing.
You’re not normal...
Oh, I think you’ll find I am: 8.4 million subscribers have binge-raced a show, either to catch up with their friends’ viewing or for the sheer one-upmanship of saying you’ve got to the end first. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to binge-race old episodes of The Crown before the second series drops. I wonder what’ll happen to the lead character…