We’re mired in the longest federal government shutdown in history, and President Donald Trump is feuding with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi over the State of the Union Speech.
Fortunately, Trevor Noah has that knack for laying out the absurd in a way that makes us laugh despite the urge to cry. In the above clip, Noah walks us through Wednesday’s drama between Pelosi and Trump. There’s a lot to laugh at — from the Game of Thrones reference to the idea that Pelosi is the only one able to instill fear in Trump — but the best part is Noah’s analysis of how Trump’s comments sound like he made them using his phone’s predictive text.
Of course, it’s not all laughs and Noah drives that home, too, highlighting the plight of unpaid federal workers. It’s sobering stuff but at least we get to laugh a little bit to make us forget for, like, five minutes.
Opposition leader Felix Tshisekedi has been sworn in as Democratic Republic of Congo‘s president, succeeding Joseph Kabila in the vast central African country’s first transfer of power through an election in 59 years of independence.
In his speech before a cheering crowd of supporters on Thursday, Tshsekedi said thiat the country will not be one of “division, hate or tribalism.”
“We want to build a strong Congo in its cultural diversity. We will promote its development in peace and security. A Congo for each and everyone, where everybody has his or her own place,” he said.
Tshisekedi’s speech, however, was momentarily disrupted when he “collapsed on the podium”, according to Al Jazeera’s Fahmida Miller, who was at the inauguration in the capital Kinshasa.
But after a few minutes, Tshisekedi has since resumed his speech.
Tshisekedi’s victory in the December 30 election was marred by accusations he struck a backroom deal with the outgoing president to deny victory to another opposition candidate, Martin Fayulu.
Kabila and Tshisekedi’s camps reject those allegations.
Thousands of Tshisekedi supporters, many of them dressed in white, gathered outside the Palace of the Nation, the seat of the presidency in capital Kinshasa, to celebrate the historic event.
“We hope that this will be a real change, especially as he has taken power without bloodshed,” said Saddam Kongolo, a member of Tshisekedi’s Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS).
One of Tshisekedi’s first tasks will be to appoint a prime minister in a move which will see him sharing power with Kabila’s supporters, who hold an overwhelming majority in parliament.
The ceremony caps more than two years of turmoil sparked by Kabila’s refusal to step down when he reached the constitutional limit on his term in office.
Al Jazeera’s Fahmida Miller, reporting from Kinshasa, said that Tshisekedi now faces the challenge of uniting the country after a divisive election.
Tshisekedi needs to “speak to people who support Martin Fayulu, who said that the elections were rigged”.
In 2018, Girl Scouts of the USA announced a new set of STEM-oriented badges, including three cybersecurity challenges. Now, the largest Girl Scouts council in the DC area, Girl Scouts Nation’s Capital (GSNC), is working with Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) to take its troops’ cyber skills to the next level.
Junior Girl Scouts ages 9-11 in the 60,000 member strong organization will be able to play a custom-made game to learn about privacy, online identities, security, and cyberbullying. Once they complete the game, they’ll earn a decidedly analog new HP Cybersecurity patch.
“As we look at the world around us, and how much happens online, and how early on kids are engaged online, I think this does become a set of fundamental life skills,” Liz Joyce, HPE’s chief information security officer, told Mashable over the phone.
Healthy internet skepticism is a Girl Scouts-approved skill!
Image: HPE/GSNC
HPE created the game along with Romero Games to model real-world scenarios. Called Cyber Squad, the game teaches kids about the concept of a “digital footprint,” online safety, privacy, security, and cyberbullying.
“Since we are talking about working with kids, we all know that kids find stuff way more memorable if it’s fun and exciting,” Joyce said. “It was important to us that this was a fun, interactive experience that would hit the right note with the girls.”
Cyber Squad came about when a GSNC troop leader — who happened to be married to an HPE executive — said she wished she could help teach her 9-11-year-old troop members more about cybersecurity. These pre-teens were becoming more autonomous digital citizens, and the troop leader felt they needed more guidance.
GSNC expressed interest, so the HP executive tapped Joyce (who is also the mother of a Girl Scout), to lead the project. She said her daughter and her friends finally understand what she does for a living — and actually think it’s cool.
More importantly, she’s seen the kids grow in confidence as they take the lessons from the game and explain cybersecurity concepts to their friends and peers in their own words.
“All of a sudden they felt confident enough to explain it to somebody else in their own words,” Joyce said, recalling some of the game’s tests. “That translation, hearing that they absorbed it and they were confident to talk about it, was a really important thing.”
How to act when girls witness cyberbullying is a notable part of the Cyber Squad curriculum.
Image: HPE/GSNC
The Girl Scouts USA launched 30 new STEM-related badges in July 2018. The HP patch is a regional achievement, but Joyce hopes that they’ll be able to bring the game and the nifty patch to more troops around the country, and, hey, even to the Boy Scouts.
“These are fundamentals that don’t just apply to girls,” Joyce said. “Girls, boys, frankly adults. There’s no shortage of need for this.”
A game might sound like a cheeky way to tackle a serious issue, but Joyce said positioning this as a game sparked interest and long discussions amongst the 9-11-year-olds about how to improve bad passwords or what to do if they see cyber-bullying.
Learning to set the table, pitch a tent, and sell countless delicious Thin Mints are still important skills for any Girl Scout. Being a cyber pro, however, is fundamental.
Pretty soon we’re all going to have to face it: Game of Thrones is ending.
While not one single GoT fan knows how to feel about that fact just yet, Maisie Williams has shared how she thinks we’ll all react to the ending of the show.
Hue Jackson reportedly didn’t react well to getting fired as head coach of the Cleveland Browns during the 2018 season.
According to an in-depth report by ESPN.com’s Seth Wickersham, both Browns owner Jimmy Haslam and general manager John Dorsey entered Jackson’s office in October to inform him of his firing.
Dorsey reportedly told Jackson that the team had “quit” on him when asked for a reason for the firing, which prompted Jackson to respond, “Get the f–k out of my office.”
Cleveland was 2-5-1 at the time of Jackson’s firing, although it was clear the team was making improvements with several close games, including four that went to overtime. It would have been difficult to rationalize keeping Jackson around after a blowout loss to the rival Pittsburgh Steelers, however.
In the previous two seasons combined, the Browns went 1-31 under Jackson, and he finished his tenure in Cleveland with a 3-36-1 mark. When adding in his 8-8 record with the Oakland Raiders in 2011, Jackson is just 11-44-1 as an NFL head coach.
After firing Jackson, the Browns promoted defensive coordinator Gregg Williams to interim head coach. That move paid dividends, as Cleveland went 5-3 down the stretch to finish 7-8-1, its best record since going 10-6 in 2007.
Following the season, the Browns promoted offensive coordinator Freddie Kitchens and made him the new head coach.
After his firing, Jackson returned to the Cincinnati Bengals as a special assistant to head coach Marvin Lewis. He had previously served as an assistant under Jackson from 2012 to 2015 before getting hired as Cleveland’s head coach.
When Lewis and the Bengals parted ways at the conclusion of the 2018 campaign, however, Jackson was let go as well. Jackson is currently free to go anywhere, but given his lack of success in Cleveland, he will almost certainly have to settle for an assistant role for the foreseeable future if he wants to remain in the NFL.
Pembrokeshire, Wales – With nine weeks to go until Brexit, Welsh abattoirs, which enjoy access to the EU marketplace and are heavily reliant on European vets and unskilled workers from the continent, face an uncertain future.
Abattoirs in Wales contribute a significant $602m to the national economy.
Currently, all vets working in abattoirs in Wales are not British and under British law, every abattoir must have one.
They play an essential role in the industry, ensuring the prevention and control of food-borne zoonoses – infectious diseases that can be naturally transmitted between animals.
In addition, the British Veterinary Association (BVA) estimates that 80 percent of Welsh abattoir labourers – who would be deemed as “unskilled” – are non-British European Union nationals.
“Labour is going to be a major issue for us after Brexit,” Justin Scale, the manager of Capestone Organic, a turkey farm and abattoir in the small coastal town of Milford Haven, told Al Jazeera.
Wales, like England, voted for Brexit in the June 2016 referendum, while most people in Scotland and Northern Ireland wanted to remain in the bloc.
Scale employs 300 people. Sixty percent of his workforce are non-British EU nationals.
Unless we see the government stepping in to support small abattoir farmers, we will inevitably see a continued reduction in their numbers after Brexit.
Jason Aldiss, managing director of Eville & Jones
This figure swells in the lead up to Christmas when he takes on several hundred more seasonal employees – typically from Romania and Bulgaria – to cope with heightened demand.
“We lost an initial group of workers around the Brexit [referendum] time, [they] told us that it was time for them to go,” Scale said.
“We have lost a lot of previous Christmas employees from EU states and we are expecting to lose more longer-term staff over the next few weeks.
“I know I can’t find that pool of labour and skills on our doorstep.”
He said the job “just isn’t appealing” to young locals.
Staffing shortages are expected to worsen in the run-up to Brexit.
Scale said some of his workers took to countries such as Denmark and Germany because a weaker pound meant their salaries were worth less back at home.
Along with currency concerns, workers are apprehensive about relocating to Wales because there is no guarantee they would be allowed to settle in the country after the EU divorce.
“We get people coming into our HR office and asking about their future here and our HR just doesn’t know the answers,” Scale said, with a shake of his head.
Welsh lamb is highly-prized and currently 90 percent of exports go to other European Union countries [Courtesy: Eville & Jones]
According to the proposed biggest shake-up of UK immigration policy for 40 years, a minimum salary of £30,000 ($39.294) will be required for “skilled migrants” entering the UK post-Brexit.
While abattoir vets earn a stable income from their work, others’ income is far from the threshold; the future of “unskilled” abattoir workers remains uncertain.
Juan Chulian, 32, moved to Wales six years ago to work as an abattoir vet, attracted by the opportunity of better-paid work than he could find in his native Andalucia.
He now works as deputy area veterinary manager for the South of Wales for Eville & Jones, the leading trainer and provider of abattoir vets in the country.
Chulian says uncertainty around workers’ rights, post-Brexit, has led to fewer abattoir vets taking up work in Wales.
“The main problem now, if you compare it to the background when I came to settle here in 2012, is that people are only passing through, they don’t want to risk moving somewhere where they may not be able to stay,” he told Al Jazeera.
Jason Aldiss, the managing director of Eville & Jones, said that since Brexit was announced, half of the abattoir veterinarians he had trained have left Wales.
In addition to workforce concerns, it is estimated that Welsh farmers make £200m ($261,4m) from EU meat sales, with 90 percent of Welsh lamb and beef being exported to EU states.
Higher costs and tighter regulations have already hit profits, with more than a third of British abattoirs having closed in the last decade.
Juan Chulian, a veterinary manager in South Wales, says European workers are now avoiding the Welsh abattoir industry over concerns they will not be able to stay after Brexit [Joe Wallen/Al Jazeera]
According to Hybu Cig Cymru, or Meat Promotion Wales (HCC), in the “best case scenario” where the UK signs a Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement with the EU, prices of Welsh meat would still rise by five percent.
But if no trade deal is signed between the EU and UK, Welsh abattoirs would face an eight percent increase in initial export costs, as well as the World Trade Organization’s tariff – tipped to be as high as 60 percent.
This would lead to a significant drop in EU demand and a subsequent overcapacity in the domestic meat market, driving down prices and further slashing profit margins.
The anticipated increase in import prices is already having an impact.
At Capestone, Scale is reeling from the news that a major French buyer, to whom he has sold poultry for 18 years, will look elsewhere after Brexit.
Like other Welsh abattoir owners, he will also lose his share of the 250 million ($326.7m) of EU funding currently provided through the Common Agricultural Policy scheme.
“Unless we see the government stepping in to support small abattoir farmers, we will inevitably see a continued reduction in their numbers after Brexit,” said Aldiss, who runs the company providing vets.
Out of the 80 abattoir vets practising in Wales, every single one is currently a non-British EU national [Courtesy: Eville & Jones]
Welsh politicians are trying to drum home the message that the industry’s survival is seriously at risk.
Stephen Crabb is the MP for Preseli Pembrokeshire and Capestone Organic falls under his constituency.
Crabb has explained how Brexit will likely deprive the abattoir industry of its workforce, in both the Brexit Select committee and House of Commons.
Yet the government has not responded to his warnings by, for instance, safeguarding abattoir owners’ employees or their exports.
With apparently weak political will to help abattoirs, it is no surprise many fear for their future.
“In terms of recruitment next year is a big worry,” said Scale, “at the moment I don’t know how we’ll do it.”
You’d think that most famous actors would remember if they’d filmed a full-frontal nude scene. Not Matthew McConaughey, though.
Stephen Colbert asked McConaughey about his upcoming movie Serenity, and noted that the Oscar-winning actor is “buck naked in this movie.”
“That’s what I keep hearing!” McConaughey replied.
“I know I was topless, and I’ve had people coming up saying: ‘Oh my God it was great to see you full frontal,’” the actor explained, shortly before he and Colbert cracked open a bourbon. “What? Was it really?” He said he was going along to the premiere where he’d find out if there was a new cut of the movie that he hadn’t already seen.
“Speaking of bourbons, it’ll be the first time we know if I’m a Savage Cock or a Longbranch,” McConaughey added. If you’ve no idea what he’s talking about, don’t worry. Colbert explained that McConaughey was making a joke that only bourbon lovers would really understand.
“Savage Cock is my bourbon, his is Longbranch,” said Colbert.
Instagram has a growing security problem: As the service swells to more than 1 billion users, these accounts are also becoming popular targets for hackers.
And if you’re one of the thousands of people trying to regain control of a hacked Instagram account, it’s often a long, frustrating process. In the past five months, Mashable has received more than 1,000 emails and messages from people who say their Instagram account has been stolen by hackers. Nearly all of them describe a support system that’s confusing, slow, and nearly as distressing as getting hacked in the first place.
Last week, a story from Motherboard’s Joseph Cox exposed just how desperate some hacking victims are to recover their lost accounts, even if it means going about it through unofficial channels.
Motherboard reported:
Instagram has been so unhelpful for a number of users that they’ve had to turn to third-party social media experts for help re-gaining access to their own accounts. Most of the victims Motherboard spoke to ended up getting help from someone who goes by Juan Diego J Pelaez, a Colombian who bills himself as an Instagram expert. Palaez also suggested to Motherboard that he has engaged in hacking in order to help people.
Yes, Instagram’s support system is so frustrating and difficult, some users have resorted to hiring other hackers to get the accounts back.
As ridiculous as it may seem, the problem is emblematic of just how frustrating and difficult to navigate Instagram’s official support system can be for those targeted by hackers.
“At this point, I’m at a loss as to what to do.”
Here’s how Instagram says the account recovery process is supposed to go: After you report your account as hacked, the company sends an automated email instructing you to either write down a code on a piece of paper and take a selfie with it, or reply with some of the information you used to first sign up for your account.
“Once you provide information to help us verify your identity, we’ll send you specific instructions to recover your account at the secure email address you provided,” Instagram says on the support page for hacked accounts. A company spokesperson said its community operations team “respond to the majority of reports within 24 hours.”
What Instagram doesn’t say is that account remediation (the company’s official term for reuniting hacking victims with lost accounts) can take weeks or months to resolve, and some users are never able to regain access to their accounts.
In a tweet, Instagram chief Adam Mosseri told Mashable: “This is definitely an area we need to do better, and we’re currently working on making it easier for people to get their accounts back.”
This is definitely an area we need to do better, and we’re currently working on making it easier for people to get their accounts back. We will keep everyone posted as we have updates.
But until Instagram changes the way it handles hacked accounts, those who have been targeted by hackers will be forced to navigate a support system that is exceedingly difficult to understand.
So you got hacked. Now what?
If your Instagram account is hacked, Instagram points you to its help center, which walks you through how to get your account back according to official policy. But it’s not as easy as it sounds. If you don’t follow the exact sequence of steps within the app, you might not be able to find the form that lets you report the account as hacked. It becomes even more complicated if hackers have changed the email address or other information associated with the account, which is frequently the case.
Some users aren’t able to find this page at all, and resort to other methods, such as emailing the now-defunct support@instagram.com. A company spokesperson told Mashable the email address “hasn’t been used in several years” as Instagram support was folded into Facebook’s community operations team following Instagram’s acquisition in 2012. When Mashable sent a message to the address, we received an automated response saying “you’ve reached us at a channel that we no longer support,” along with a link to Instagram’s help center.
The message you get when you email support@instagram.com.
Image: screenshot/karissa bell
But others try to find more creative ways to get Instagram’s attention, reporting their inaccessible account for impersonation or fake copyright violations, in an effort to flag their account to the app’s support staff.
“I ended up deciding I would rather get the account taken down”
Gabrielle Turi, a photographer and Boston University student, discovered her Instagram account had been hacked in September. She first tried several times to get it back through Instagram’s help channels, but each time received a message back that she was reporting the wrong account. (The hackers had changed the information associated with the account, including the username, which she believes tripped up the company’s automated support system). She then tried a different approach.
“I ended up deciding I would rather get the account taken down than have the hacker find the personal information of some of the people I’d been in contact with through the direct messages. I reported it for copyright violations,” Turi says.
The account was removed, but she soon found she had a new problem: She could no longer access the second account she had made through her phone. “When Instagram saw my report, they took down the account which then blocked my phone from using the app,” she says.
Now, she’s stuck in a “weird limbo,” where her only option is to use Instagram from a laptop, making it nearly impossible for her to manage the accounts of campus organizations she’s a part of.
“Instagram won’t respond to my requests for help with the issue,” she says. “At this point I’m at a loss as to what to do.”
An Instagram spokesperson said in a statement to Mashable that the company was “working hard” to protect users.“We have sophisticated measures in place to stop bad actors in their tracks before they gain access to accounts, as well as measures to help people recover their accounts. We know we can do more here, and we’re working hard in both of these areas to stop bad actors before they cause harm, and to keep our community safe.”
Stuck talking to help center bots
Things can go wrong even when you try to follow all of Instagram’s instructions. It can take days to get responses from company support and, even when you provide all of the requested information, you might still get messages that the company was unable to verify your identity, forcing you to start the process all over again. Because these emails are automated, you don’t actually get an explanation about what you did wrong or why your claim was rejected.
Instagram makes the specifics of account remediation opaque, so as not to make it easier for hackers to circumvent, but it also makes the process much more confusing for those trying to navigate it. If your hand isn’t visible in the verification photo, for example, it may prevent Instagram from verifying your identity, but the company’s automated emails wouldn’t tell you if that’s why it rejected your claim.
“When I got to the last step, Instagram wanted to send a confirmation to the hacker’s email”
One Instagram user named Claude, who requested Mashable withhold his last name, says he spent more than a month going in circles with Instagram support after his account was hacked and the email on his account changed to a .ru email address in October. He attempted to follow the steps laid out in the help center, but the automated process quickly broke down.
“I followed these instructions to the letter, and when I got to the very last step, Instagram wanted to send a confirmation email to the Russian hacker’s email,” Claude told Mashable. He had previously provided an alternative, secure email, at Instagram’s request. “I contacted Instagram again, and they responded by sending the exact instructions that hadn’t worked to begin with.”
After again explaining why Instagram couldn’t contact him through his hacker’s email address, he received the same automated email. Finally, after several failed attempts, he tried something different.
He found a phone number for Instagram after some searching online. He called the number and, eventually, was able to leave a “short, but detailed message.”
He says the call cost him $6 in long distance charges,and although he never received a call back or any acknowledgement of his complaint, the message seemed to have gotten through: Two days later, he tried again to log in to his account and found the two-factor authentication phone number had been changed back to his own. After more than a month without access, he was finally able to get into his account.
“If I could have spoken to a human being at Instagram it could have been saved”
“It ended well, but it shouldn’t have taken this much time, energy, work, and frustration to get it resolved,” he says now of the experience.
Losing access to an account can be even more devastating if you’re a business owner who relies on the app. For, Andrew Fullerton, a New York City photographer who used his account for networking with models and clients, “Instagram was not only proof of my abilities as a photographer, but proof that I had other people validating my work.”
When his account was recently hacked and username changed, he says, “it genuinely felt like my digital existence vanished overnight.” His original handle is now tied to a different account, while the account showcasing his work now appears under a separate name.
Since then, he estimates he’s tried to reach Instagram through its support form at least a half a dozen times, but each time gets a message that he’s not using a valid email address. He has also tried calling and leaving voicemails, but hasn’t gotten a response.
“At the moment, I feel pretty defeated,” he told Mashable. “I don’t know what it says about the state of culture today that I feel defeated over a lost Instagram account, but I can’t help from being frustrated. It’s become so integral to the way I live my life.”
Others also report confusing, circular interactions with the company’s automated support system. Bob Bentz, who is president of a digital marketing agency, lost his account in August, when a hacker changed the email address, username, password, and profile photo on his personal Instagram page.
After reporting his account as hacked, he received an email asking him to confirm his identity. He followed all the instructions in the email, but received a message back that he was reporting the wrong account. “It looks like you contacted us for help with a different Instagram account. To make sure we’re helping the right person, we’re only able to help you with one account at a time,” the email said. It also included a link to Instagram’s help center.
Bentz even tried reaching out to the Facebook support team he works with professionally as part of his day job. “I felt like maybe I had a leg up on the average person struggling with Instagram’s support system,” he told Mashable in an email. “After 10 business days, I learned that they don’t handle that type of thing.”
Thirty days after losing his Instagram, the hacker deleted his account entirely. He believes the automated system was not able to deal with the specifics of his case. “If I just could have spoken to a human being at Instagram, it could have been saved.”
Have a tip? Email the author at: karissa [at] mashable.com.
In Binged, Mashable breaks down why we binge-watch, how we binge-watch, and what it does to us. Because binge-watching is the new normal.
Two episodes into Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, I knew I hated it. Then I watched two more episodes —in the same sitting. Somehow, I finished all eight episodes of the Netflix show’s first season in a matter of days.
Why? I was under the spell of the hate-binge.
Being glued to the TV as I lose myself in a show I like makes sense; I’m enjoying myself. But this nonstop watching of something I dislike … does it make me a masochist?
Nope, it just makes me human, according to psychology and communications experts.
Something you hate can suck you in just as much as a show that makes your heart sing — love and hate are both strong emotions, after all. The cardinal TV show sin if you’re looking to attract binge-watchers is to be boring, says Paul Levinson, a communications professor at Fordham University and author of New New Media.
“Once our emotions are unleashed, whether it’s because we’re very attracted to something or very repelled by something, if we feel strongly enough about it, we want to know more,” Levinson says. He gives the example of President Trump to further his point: Even if you hate him, you can’t seem to look away.
Yes, Chilling Adventures unleashed my emotions, so one point for Levinson. I was annoyed by Aunt Zelda’s cigarette stick, the show’s attempts at tackling social issues seemed shallow, Sabrina’s choice between the mortal and witch worlds felt half-baked, and her family’s coven was confusingly run by a man. I liked Sabrina’s mysterious cousin Ambrose, though, so the series has some redeeming qualities.
“Binge-watching a show you hate may not be particularly pleasant, but it’s more pleasant than cleaning the bathroom.”
An episode or two beyond the halfway mark, I thought to myself: Maybe I should do something else? I quickly flicked that musing away. There’s only a few more episodes left and everyone’s talking about this show; there must be some redeeming quality I’m missing, I told myself. Besides, it’ll take too long for me to settle on something new to watch, and I really don’t want to go change the laundry.
These rationalizations can be tied to psychological research, says Alice Atkin, a PhD student at the University of Alberta’s Neuroscience and Mental Health Institute who is studying video game players and their personality types.
“When there are no good options about what to do, people tend to sort of default to the least objectionable decision,” Atkin says. “Binge-watching a show you hate may not be particularly pleasant, but it’s more pleasant than cleaning the bathroom or taking your dog for a walk when it’s raining.”
As for my completionist tendencies, Atkin says this has to do with a misconception about time and effort known as the sunk-cost fallacy.
“When we invest time and resources and effort into something and we’re not getting anything out of it, we feel like that time is wasted, and we don’t want to waste our time, so we keep going, hoping eventually we’ll get something out of it,” she says. “Eventually what happens is you dislike it more and more, you waste more and more money, and things generally just get worse.”
Greeaaattt.
In this age of Peak TV, you might think it’d be easy to toss one show aside and move onto something new. But it can feel overwhelming to start over. I’ve already spent 15 minutes scrolling through Netflix to decide what to watch in the first place. Why would I want to start the process all over?
This feeling can take hold just a few episodes in, Levinson says.
“If you have given enough that you’ve watched an episode or two, it is preferable to keep watching than trying something new,” he says. “Even an annoyance or dislike is more reliable than watching something new where we have no feeling associated.”
If I don’t like something by episode 2, that’s when I start hoping for a turnaround, a Hail Mary pass, something to bear fruit — especially if a show has social media buzz. And that keeps me watching more. When Netflix starts its 15-second countdown to the next episode, I let it passively lure me into the next one as I cross my fingers for the show to change course.
My hopeful desires have to do with social influence, Atkin says. In general, we tend to think other people know better. Others who are gushing about this show on Twitter can’t be wrong, so less confident naysayers like myself keep watching to see what we’re missing.
So how do I stop wasting my time on stuff I dislike?
Atkin suggests turning autoplay off on streaming platforms and being more mindful when an episode ends.
“If you’ve binge-watched before and you regretted it — maybe you didn’t get enough sleep, or you didn’t do your work — just remember that feeling. Remember that if you keep watching the show you’ll regret it, and that should help you make a different decision.”
I took Atkin’s advice when I started watching Sex Education, a show I actually liked and would recommend for its relatable portrayal of awkward teen romance and skilled knit-work of diverse storylines. I eased myself in, watching two roughly one-hour episodes at kickoff. Before the third rolled onto my TV screen, I proudly shut off the TV. It was late and I had yoga in the morning. The same mindful decision-making continued the next day.
But on my third viewing, I watched four episodes in a row. After two, I felt so close to the end of the eight-episode British drama that I just wanted to finish it. I found myself clicking through to the next episode before Netflix’s countdown was over more than once.
I don’t really like horror. That is, unless it’s happening in a video game like Resident Evil 2.
I haven’t watched much horror in my life for the simple fact that I don’t particularly enjoy being scared. I don’t like watching characters that I’m supposed to root for go through harrowing, terrifying scenarios. On top of that, I’m not really a fan of gore.
But put me in control of the situation and I’m all in.
My first experience with a horror game was Resident Evil 4 in 2005, a few years after I saw my first spooky movie, The Sixth Sense. I’m not sure what compelled me to play Resident Evil 4, considering seeing The Sixth Sense haunted me for a very long time, but I did, and I loved it.
Something about being in direct control of the character in the scenario is intensely appealing to me. It’s almost like going through a haunted house (something that I also do not like) in that I get to move at my own pace through something scary without the threat of actual danger. In a game, I get to choose what I look at. I get to choose how quickly I move. But there’s an added layer between myself and the spookiness.
Even with that disconnect, I’m able to lose myself in the experience.
‘Resident Evil 7’ is just so thoroughly unsettling.
Image: capcom
Let’s look at one of my favorite horror games, Resident Evil 7. Throughout most of the game, I was afraid of pushing forward. The swampy house that the main character finds himself in is home to a terrifyingly sadistic family that plays host to horrible mold colonies, disgusting bug infestations, and all kinds of repulsive, unsettling things. It’s not exactly a warm, welcoming vibe.
With the possibility of so many awful things popping up at any moment, my focus peaks.
But I did push forward. Slowly and carefully, sure, but I pushed forward.
After working through a section of the horror house, I became intimately familiar with every inch of it. The added emotion of fear in a video game acts as a catalyst for increased awareness. With the possibility of so many awful things popping up at any moment, my focus peaks as I scan every part of every room looking for either things that will hurt me or items that will help me.
And once the danger is gone, I double back and check everything again in case I missed a box of bullets or ever-helpful green herb. It makes the whole immersion aspect that much more intense.
That immersion and connection to the character can make it hard to push forward, not knowing what lies in wait.
Every closed door that you open in a horror game has a chance of being your least favorite thing you encounter, whether it’s shockingly scary, intensely challenging, or just plain gross.
‘Dead Space 2’ has so many doors I don’t want to open.
Dead Space 2, another favorite of mine, has a notorious section where you have to make your way through a nursery full of grotesquely mutated toddlers and babies who swarm you in these awful little herds and try to kill you. Not only is it extra scary because they are children, it’s a difficult section to get through because your targets are so small and fast.
That gratification helps push me onward.
But after you get through it, that feeling of relief and accomplishment can’t be beat.
This feeling is part of what makes horror games so successful to me, and it’s also what draws me to extremely challenging games. Getting through a challenge, whether it’s mechanically or mentally demanding, is so gratifying.
Making it through particularly intense rooms or scenarios in Resident Evil 2, even if they aren’t that tough gameplay wise, give me the same feeling as making it through particularly tough sections of games like Celeste or Dark Souls. And that gratification helps push me onward.
Resident Evil 2 had a lot of rooms that I didn’t want to go through, like the kennel with its zombified dogs or the nearby jail filled with locked up zombies that I just knew would be unleashed on me at some point.
Also the sewers were not exactly inviting.
Image: capcom
But after making it through and shooting/juking my way past the vile enemies to trigger a cutscene, I was so happy. I was ready to keep playing even though just a minute ago I was about to turn it off for the day.
It’s a complicated feat to balance these moments of terror with moments of calm, and games that do it well like Resident Evil 2 make for some of my favorite games — even though I don’t really like horror otherwise.
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