Each Olympic season is an opportunity to get obsessive about some sport you simply realized about, cry over an athlete from a spot you didn’t learn about profitable gold, and usually get labored up at an ideal Simone Biles ground routine. It wasn’t way back (circa 2010s) when the Olympics meant catching the video games at odd hours or watching replays throughout primetime. Whereas I definitely did my half this yr to binge all issues Staff USA, I couldn’t assist however discover the distinction in experiences this yr.
Conversations between mates and coworkers watching various things at totally different instances shifted from “Are you seeing this?” to “Oh, you must go watch it, I’ll ship a TikTok.” What had been as soon as key moments of a shared collective expertise, have splintered.
Welcome to the period of solo streaming. As an introvert, I’m tremendous with this (simply kidding). Let’s break down this Olympic-sized behavioral shift and what it means.
RIP to the collective expertise of stay TV
When folks watch sports activities collectively, they report a better fee of success. It seems that cheering collectively helps create a shared identification inside a neighborhood. The Olympics is the head of this, a uncommon time when a whole nation can faucet into this type of shared expertise. Then got here new viewing choices that irrevocably altered behaviors.
This yr, Peacock turned the definitive hub for full Olympic protection, a major evolution since its try at a begin when launching in time for the postponed 2021 Olympics. Each occasion is now out there at our comfort in replay and as-it-happens. Watch what you need, while you need. The flexibleness is undoubtedly handy—whereas coming at the price of fracturing the sense of collective expertise into remoted moments.
Social media crumbs
Including to this fragmentation are our favourite platforms like TikTok and Instagram. They flood our feeds with the highlights virtually immediately, usually earlier than occasions are even aired historically or throughout non-Peacock companies. Due to these platforms’ distaste for chronological order, we’d encounter clips out of order, disrupting a way of real-time, joint viewing, they usually usually spoiled the outcomes.
Shrinking the hole between occasion time and on-line dialog
