Correspondence on Trailer Before Commitment
The trailer was watched. The film was then added to a list. The list now has sixty-four items.
FORENSIC ANALYSIS Subject: Trailer Before Commitment Evidence Type: Viewing History and Watchlist Contents, Cross-Referenced
Evidence, Item 1: The Trailer
A person watches a trailer before deciding whether to watch the film. This is the intended use of trailers. Trailers are designed to create commitment. They succeed at creating commitment approximately forty percent of the time.
The other sixty percent produces a watchlist item.
Evidence, Item 2: The Watchlist
The watchlist currently contains sixty-four items. The watchlist was created in April 2020. At creation, it contained eleven items carefully selected from multiple streaming platforms. These eleven items were chosen because they represented things the subject specifically wanted to watch.
The watchlist now contains sixty-four items. Thirty-one of them were added after watching a trailer. Fourteen were added on the recommendation of an article listing things to watch during a lockdown. Eight were added because a person the subject respects mentioned the title in a message and the subject added it immediately to avoid forgetting it.
The subject has not watched any of the eight.
Evidence, Item 3: The Commitment Mechanism
A watchlist is a commitment device that functions as a commitment-avoidance device. Adding to the list satisfies the same intention-forming impulse as beginning to watch, without requiring the two-hour investment that beginning to watch requires.
The trailer is the mechanism. The trailer is two and a half minutes. The trailer is stimulating and well-edited and ends on the best line in the film. The watchlist item takes three seconds to add.
The two and a half minutes of the trailer have purchased sixty-four to-do items.
Evidence, Item 4: The Viewing Pattern
The platform is supposed to match the viewer to content, yet the matching produces a backlog that is itself a form of content that must be managed. On evenings when a film is wanted, the subject opens the platform and spends approximately eight minutes deciding what to watch. This decision process involves scrolling the watchlist, reading summaries of items already on the list, and sometimes watching short clips to determine whether tonight is the right night for the item in question.
On four documented occasions in May 2021, the subject watched a trailer for a film already on the watchlist.
The film was then rewatched in its trailer. Not watched. Rewatched in trailer.
Evidence, Item 5: The New Item
On one of these occasions, the subject added a second film to the watchlist after the trailer appeared in the recommendations generated by watching the trailer for the first film.
Finding
Sixty-four items. One added tonight. The subject watched thirty-seven minutes of content this evening, of which twenty-two minutes were trailers.
The subject went to bed having not committed to any of them.
The list will be revisited tomorrow.