The Netflix Effect: Does Binge-Watching Make TV Shows Forgettable?

It started with a DVD box set.

My friends and I were in college, sitting in a cramped apartment, splitting a bottle of wine we definitely couldn’t afford, binge-watching Sex and the City on a secondhand DVD player. Someone’s older sister had gifted them the first two seasons, and we devoured them in days.

We stayed up way too late debating Carrie’s choices, planning our future Samantha-style exploits, and—if I’m being honest—letting those glossy, edited-for-HBO depictions of NYC convince us that we had to get out of Sonoma County and move to San Diego together (which we did for a few years, and I am one of the only ones who came back).

Here’s the thing: We didn’t binge because we had to. We binged because the DVDs let us. And we had never had that option before. I know I am aging myself, and Blockbuster at the time did have shelves dedicated to TV shows, but I never thought to rent shows and watch them.

In the early 2000’s Sex and the City gained a second life through its DVD box sets. It reached a broader audience who didn’t have HBO subscriptions (especially younger women in college or early careers—like me and my friends). It became a sleepover staple, a post-breakup ritual, and a kind of aspirational Bible for twenty/thirty-something women figuring out adulthood.

Those DVD box sets made it possible to binge-watch TV before Netflix ever dropped House of Cards all at once. And I heard that Sex and the City became even more popular because of those DVDs (just like Family Guy came back to Fox after being canceled and finding a cult following on DVD and Adult Swim).

Then Netflix came along, and you could rent DVDs and start binging more consistently—without the physical bulk or the $50 box set price tag. Suddenly, you could finish an entire series without leaving your house or committing to buying it outright.

The Binge Model Didn’t Start With Netflix, But They Capitalized On It

Netflix wasn’t an instigator but a reflection of a larger societal transformation. Our relationship with TV changed again when bingeing went from optional to default.

When they went from DVDs to streaming, I remember only using the service for TV shows. Then, they started making their own. And seasons were short - just like HBO.

The rise of binge culture aligns with broader trends in digital immediacy, where people expect everything on demand—from shopping (Amazon Prime) to communication (instant messaging) to information (Google).

Some shows thrive in that model.

The first show I remember binge-watching through Netflix DVDs was Nip/Tuck, and honestly? That show needed to be binged. It was chaotic, shocking, and designed to keep you hooked in a way that didn’t require—or even benefit from—week-to-week reflection. It wasn’t something I needed to talk about on social media. I just wanted to keep watching.

And I couldn't stop. I stayed up way too late and sacrificed my next day just to watch one episode after another.

Just to get that "hit" of the next episode.

I have discussed something similar to this idea with my ADHD therapist. But if you know anything about how our brains work and create dopamine, you know that binge-watching frontloads dopamine into your brain—maximizing reward but shortening the pleasure cycle.

Does Anything Stick Anymore?

Take Orange Is the New Black. It was groundbreaking.

One of Netflix’s first massive originals, a show that tackled race, privilege, and the brutal realities of the U.S. prison system—things that the average American probably hadn’t thought much about before. It gave depth to women’s incarceration in a way mainstream media had never done, peeling back the layers of the justice system to show who gets second chances (and who doesn’t).

The discourse should have lasted months, with each episode giving people time to process what they just saw.

Instead, it was dropped all at once, consumed in a weekend, and then… poof ... on to the next thing.

Compare that to Watchmen on HBO. A show that tackled generational trauma, white supremacy, and state violence—many of the same systems OITNB critiqued, just through a different lens. But because it aired weekly, Watchmen lived.

It grew.

Each week, new think pieces were written. People sat with their shock, their discomfort, their questions. The conversation expanded, evolved.

Would Orange Is the New Black been even BIGGER as a weekly release?

What nuances did we miss because we didn’t have time to absorb what it was saying? How many shows have faded from the Netflix algorithm abyss simply because they weren’t given time to stick?

This isn’t just a TV problem—it’s a content problem.

The Netflix-ification of Everything

The binge model isn’t just about how we watch TV. It’s how we consume everything now. News, social media, marketing campaigns. It’s instant, overwhelming, and then forgotten.

Think about how brands launch products now. No slow build-up. Just a massive, algorithm-fed burst of content, then silence. Think about influencer trends. There’s no it bag anymore—just a rotating lineup of microtrends that live and die on TikTok in weeks. Think about music. How many songs have you loved for a weekend and then completely forgotten?

The issue isn’t that bingeing is bad—it’s that it kills longevity. It makes things feel disposable.

So, What Now?

The irony? Even Netflix itself is shifting back. They’re experimenting with staggered releases (The Sandman or the last episode of Stranger Things 4—remember that show?). Competitors like Hulu, HBO, Disney+, and Apple TV+ have always focused on weekly models because they know what Netflix—and frankly, we—are just now figuring out: anticipation creates impact.

And this applies far beyond TV.

In marketing, slow-burn campaigns build trust—not just hype. In branding, longevity matters more than short-term virality. In creativity, giving ideas room to breathe makes them last.

We don’t just consume stories—we live with them. And when everything is dumped on us at once, we don’t get the chance to really absorb them.

The same goes for the stories we tell each other.

I’m not saying binge-watching is bad. I’ve spent plenty of nights glued to a screen, tearing through reruns of True Blood, or watching Lost for the first time when I was home with my son when he was a baby, happy to "get lost" in the chaos.

But I also know that I missed out on the weekly discourse with other people who loved the same shows. The community. The anticipation. The joy of wondering what was coming next.

Some shows hit differently when they have time to settle in—when the anticipation, the conversations, and the slow-burn investment make them last in my memory. Think about what The White Lotus would be like if it was spoiled that it was Jennifer Coolidge who died because someone who skipped to the end decided to tweet about it minutes after it dropped. 

Maybe it’s not about choosing one model over the other. Maybe it’s about recognizing which stories deserve the wait. Next time you start a new show, ask yourself: Does this story deserve space in your week—or just your weekend?