What Does Binge Watching Mean? Netflix Explains the Term That Took on its Own Meaning

If you’ve been living under a rock for the past few years or perhaps trapped in a doomsday bunker because your captor believes the apocalypse is occurring above you, you might be wondering “what does binge-watching mean” or “where did the term binge-watching’ come from?

With no specific origin except ‘the internet’ Netflix VP of Product Todd Yellin explains Netflix’s stance on the term and gives some insight into why Netflix releases all episodes of most shows at once. You can watch his whole video commentary on the topic here:

Yellin explains that at first, Netflix wasn’t sure it wanted to be associated with anything related to ‘binge,’ as the connotations with the word seem negative at first. But after a while, Netflix sort of adopted it, realizing that it had become somewhat of a badge of honor for their subscribers to finish entire seasons of TV shows in one night. And we’ve all been there, right? The second season of ‘House of Cards’ saw Netflix subscribers sitting in front of the TV for nearly 12 hours straight in order to be some of the first people done with the show’s second season (and we certainly don’t blame them after that premiere episode).

And it didn’t start with just Netflix originals. The Netflix library has plenty of shows that found countless people streaming entire seasons.

If we had to guess, it seems that ‘Lost’ was one of the original “binge” shows on Netflix. As the series neared its finale on network television, people didn’t want to be left behind on one of the 2000’s biggest shows. In order to get caught up, drastic measures were taken to ensure that the final season could be viewed in real time.

Similarly, AMC’s ‘Breaking Bad’ and ‘The Walking Dead‘ have found audiences continually hitting that ‘next episode’ button, no matter the time or other responsibilities looming.

How about you? What shows have you binge-watched? Let us know in the comments below.