“I Watch, Therefore I Am”

Narrative by Chirag Mediratta, Posted November 5, 2024

Illustration provided by the author

The CASE FILE series — to which SEMIOVOX has invited our semiotician colleagues from around the world to contribute — shares memorable case studies via story telling.

In the past eight years, I have worked with several OTT (streaming content) and social media companies to help them deepen their understanding of the relationship between content consumption, preference, and identity. The more I worked on this subject, the clearer it became that we live in a world where the idea of “I think; therefore I am” has been replaced by “I watch; therefore I am.” Unsurprisingly, this is particularly true with younger generations.

I found the shift from “thinking” (in the sense of identity creation, expression, and management) to “watching” unsettling, at first, and fretted about what it must be doing to our layers — real, social, ideal — of identity. But before diving into these deep waters, I wanted to understand people’s relationship with their phones, especially in a collectivist country like India, where access to individualism, privacy, and self-expression has been curtailed.

The revelations that came out of my analysis were as follows:

Watching content on a phone creates a personal sanctuary — a mental rather than a physical one — where the individual is in control. In a country where personal space is often limited and individuality sacrificed for collective norms, the phone screen offers a retreat from societal expectations and pressures, allowing individuals to escape and explore themselves and the world.
Watching content helps us to resolve identity tensions. The activity of watching offers a sense of escape, comfort, and belonging, inspires change, and aids in social currency with affiliation. The dual role of an escape and a bridge to belonging is particularly potent in India.
We actively outsource our identity to content over time. This realisation came from observing how deeply people integrate content into their concept of self. Content consumption is no longer a passive activity; it has become an active form of identity construction. People curate their personalities based on the shows they watch, the influencers they follow, and the memes they share. It is not about entertainment but asserting agency, investing in “me-time,” and feeling connected and relevant at the moment in an increasingly disconnected and lonely world.

This outsourcing of identity construction and expression to content has profound implications for personal and social dynamics. On one hand, it offers unprecedented opportunities for self-exploration, coping mechanisms and virtual connections. On the other hand, it raises concerns about authenticity, contextualisation, self-reflection, and the pressure to conform to digital trends. The line between genuine self-expression and performative consumption becomes increasingly blurred.

If we stop thinking and outsource it to the content we watch, then who are we? As we continue to immerse ourselves in the digital world, relying on content to define us, do we risk losing the depth, authenticity, and complexity that comes from introspection and self-discovery?

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“I Watch, Therefore I Am”