I've always thought the problem was a lack of sound training in art criticsm. Skepticsm is often the first approach to art before indulgence, for most people. Despite this, they eventually develop some familiarity, but often with a select few genres/with, and rarely with any specific members of said categories. Resultantly, they shut their minds to anything outside selected favorites while still in search of novelty. And at this point art exists only to serve some shallow need, and this is good for artists who only create to satisfy, but not for artists who create to reveal new phenomena or examine/express old ones in fresh perspective. Their work is easily waved away when met with that first round of skepticsm, probably only to be remembered long after they're dead and their work finds new ownership in the public domain.
Coupled with emotional cultivation, there's an additional possibility that the majority of people are poor critics of art, and will yet critique because they have to consume, is what I'm saying.
This piece hit hard, especially in a world where consumerism quietly shapes how we love. We don’t just feel anymore; we evaluate, compare, and scroll past.
In a culture addicted to upgrades and instant highs, maybe commitment is our most radical act.
Thank you for writing this; it truly is reflective and deeply touching. Also, well-done on the real-time data!
Adesoto, this essay is persuasive, poetic, and intimate. Disagreeing with it almost feels like rejecting emotional vulnerability or depth itself.
I love how you’ve used media habits as an entry point to discuss emotional intimacy, cultural overstimulation, and attention fragmentation. Your blend of anecdote, data, pop psychology, and neuroscience creates a narrative that’s both beautiful and provocative
And that final section about returning as an act of love? Gorgeous. Thoughtful. Haunting even.
But I think there’s an overreach.
Correlation is being dressed up as causation.
Your essay implies:
If you avoid rewatching, you avoid commitment.
If you seek novelty, you're emotionally unavailable.
But Neurological comfort-seeking ≠ relational avoidance.
Avoiding a movie isn’t the same as avoiding a person. Rewatching media isn’t commitment, it’s repetition-based preference, one that varies wildly across people, cultures, and brain chemistry.
To treat it as a moral compass is to misread the nature of human emotional behavior.
The leap from:
“I avoid The Notebook because it reminds me of heartbreak”
to
“You probably can’t sustain a relationship”,
is not just a stretch, it’s a categorical error.
1. Pleasure = Repetition, Not Commitment
When people like something, they often want to repeat it. That doesn’t mean they’re committing to it in the emotional sense, it’s dopamine-seeking, not devotion.
For instance, you replay a song on loop because it feels good not because you're in a long-term relationship with it.
2. Avoidance = Trauma, Not Detachment
People avoid rewatching not due to commitment issues, but because media gets emotionally tagged by experiences, trauma, or context. That’s basic neurology, like classical conditioning.
If you had a panic attack during a film, your brain might associate that film (or song) with fear. That's not commitment-phobia; that's survival wiring.
3. Anxious or neurodivergent people (like those with OCD or GAD) often rewatch familiar things for emotional regulation, not because they're more relationally committed.
Rewatching The Office for the 10th time doesn't mean you're a relationship expert, it might just mean it's predictable and soothing.
4. Behavioral =/= Relational
Media habits are not always proxies for relational capacity.
Just because someone replays music a lot doesn’t mean they’re good at, or bad at staying in love.
You can be romantically loyal but never rewatch movies. You can be a serial cheater and still reread Harry Potter every year.
5. You said: "We're allowing these stories to know us, to see us in our various states of being across time..."
That’s beautiful, but also misleading.
Stories don’t know us, we project onto them.
You also said: "People avoid media they’ve once loved because it reminds them of who they were when they first loved it, and that’s painful."
And that’s real.
But again, that’s memory and emotional resonance, not commitment pathology.
6. It Romanticizes Repetition as Emotional Depth.
There’s a subtle elitism in the suggestion that those who rewatch are more emotionally mature, more willing to “return,” more capable of love.
But that frames repetition as a virtue in itself, when in reality, some people process emotion through novelty, others through reflection. Both are valid.
When I like something, I do it often. When something gets emotionally charged with pain, I avoid it.
That’s not fear of love, it’s associative memory. It’s neurology, not cowardice.
What you’ve really captured—beautifully—is the emotional fragmentation of our digital age.
There’s been a death of sustained attention.
We scroll more than we finish.
We start 20 shows and complete none.
We abandon books, projects, even people.
But that’s not commitment-phobia. It’s the consequence of a world constantly offering novelty and distraction.
You’ve diagnosed the emotional fragmentation of our digital age in a deeply felt way.
I have to let you know that I deeply admire the commitment to research on this topic. At every step of the way, the focus was entirely on the subject matter and I cannot express how insightful it was to read this. Thank you, so much.
This is such an insightful read. Felt like a stimulating conversation and I just love how fascinating it was. Thank you for the time you took to piece this together. I'm definitely coming back to it.
This is succinct as no words were cumbersome, it was a thorough not exhausting read, equal part foreign and familiar, fleetingly heartbreaking, how anything can truly define piece(s) of a person.
I've always thought the problem was a lack of sound training in art criticsm. Skepticsm is often the first approach to art before indulgence, for most people. Despite this, they eventually develop some familiarity, but often with a select few genres/with, and rarely with any specific members of said categories. Resultantly, they shut their minds to anything outside selected favorites while still in search of novelty. And at this point art exists only to serve some shallow need, and this is good for artists who only create to satisfy, but not for artists who create to reveal new phenomena or examine/express old ones in fresh perspective. Their work is easily waved away when met with that first round of skepticsm, probably only to be remembered long after they're dead and their work finds new ownership in the public domain.
Coupled with emotional cultivation, there's an additional possibility that the majority of people are poor critics of art, and will yet critique because they have to consume, is what I'm saying.
Insightful yet somehow the most common knowledge.
This piece hit hard, especially in a world where consumerism quietly shapes how we love. We don’t just feel anymore; we evaluate, compare, and scroll past.
In a culture addicted to upgrades and instant highs, maybe commitment is our most radical act.
Thank you for writing this; it truly is reflective and deeply touching. Also, well-done on the real-time data!
Thank you very much.
Adesoto, this essay is persuasive, poetic, and intimate. Disagreeing with it almost feels like rejecting emotional vulnerability or depth itself.
I love how you’ve used media habits as an entry point to discuss emotional intimacy, cultural overstimulation, and attention fragmentation. Your blend of anecdote, data, pop psychology, and neuroscience creates a narrative that’s both beautiful and provocative
And that final section about returning as an act of love? Gorgeous. Thoughtful. Haunting even.
But I think there’s an overreach.
Correlation is being dressed up as causation.
Your essay implies:
If you avoid rewatching, you avoid commitment.
If you seek novelty, you're emotionally unavailable.
But Neurological comfort-seeking ≠ relational avoidance.
Avoiding a movie isn’t the same as avoiding a person. Rewatching media isn’t commitment, it’s repetition-based preference, one that varies wildly across people, cultures, and brain chemistry.
To treat it as a moral compass is to misread the nature of human emotional behavior.
The leap from:
“I avoid The Notebook because it reminds me of heartbreak”
to
“You probably can’t sustain a relationship”,
is not just a stretch, it’s a categorical error.
1. Pleasure = Repetition, Not Commitment
When people like something, they often want to repeat it. That doesn’t mean they’re committing to it in the emotional sense, it’s dopamine-seeking, not devotion.
For instance, you replay a song on loop because it feels good not because you're in a long-term relationship with it.
2. Avoidance = Trauma, Not Detachment
People avoid rewatching not due to commitment issues, but because media gets emotionally tagged by experiences, trauma, or context. That’s basic neurology, like classical conditioning.
If you had a panic attack during a film, your brain might associate that film (or song) with fear. That's not commitment-phobia; that's survival wiring.
3. Anxious or neurodivergent people (like those with OCD or GAD) often rewatch familiar things for emotional regulation, not because they're more relationally committed.
Rewatching The Office for the 10th time doesn't mean you're a relationship expert, it might just mean it's predictable and soothing.
4. Behavioral =/= Relational
Media habits are not always proxies for relational capacity.
Just because someone replays music a lot doesn’t mean they’re good at, or bad at staying in love.
You can be romantically loyal but never rewatch movies. You can be a serial cheater and still reread Harry Potter every year.
5. You said: "We're allowing these stories to know us, to see us in our various states of being across time..."
That’s beautiful, but also misleading.
Stories don’t know us, we project onto them.
You also said: "People avoid media they’ve once loved because it reminds them of who they were when they first loved it, and that’s painful."
And that’s real.
But again, that’s memory and emotional resonance, not commitment pathology.
6. It Romanticizes Repetition as Emotional Depth.
There’s a subtle elitism in the suggestion that those who rewatch are more emotionally mature, more willing to “return,” more capable of love.
But that frames repetition as a virtue in itself, when in reality, some people process emotion through novelty, others through reflection. Both are valid.
When I like something, I do it often. When something gets emotionally charged with pain, I avoid it.
That’s not fear of love, it’s associative memory. It’s neurology, not cowardice.
What you’ve really captured—beautifully—is the emotional fragmentation of our digital age.
There’s been a death of sustained attention.
We scroll more than we finish.
We start 20 shows and complete none.
We abandon books, projects, even people.
But that’s not commitment-phobia. It’s the consequence of a world constantly offering novelty and distraction.
You’ve diagnosed the emotional fragmentation of our digital age in a deeply felt way.
And that’s what stayed with me most.
I have to let you know that I deeply admire the commitment to research on this topic. At every step of the way, the focus was entirely on the subject matter and I cannot express how insightful it was to read this. Thank you, so much.
Thank you, Priest.✨
I have no words. This is insightful.
I appreciate the correlation you're making between our little infidelities and the bigger picture. Well argued, well articulated. Thank you.
Thank you for reading.
This is such an insightful read. Felt like a stimulating conversation and I just love how fascinating it was. Thank you for the time you took to piece this together. I'm definitely coming back to it.
Glad you liked it.
This is succinct as no words were cumbersome, it was a thorough not exhausting read, equal part foreign and familiar, fleetingly heartbreaking, how anything can truly define piece(s) of a person.
The hyper dependence on escapism is fascinating.
Thank you!
Thank you for reading, Camela.
Man. Emotional cultivation based in media consumed or not consumed is a more dire situation than I believed.
Indeed.
Loved reading every bit of this. I’ve learnt so much that i cannot fully articulate at the moment.
Thank you for this !
Thank you for reading, Stella.