Are You Addicted to Sitcoms? Blame Biology

So Netflix, which has heretofore been my go-to dealer for random Jean Reno flicks, has now jumped into the political game. FLIXPAC, aside from being aggressively caps-locked, promises to dump a whole boatload of money into Capitol Hill in search of toughened piracy laws. Of course, Netflix would love to have had SOPA and PIPA succeed because, if torrenting movies isn’t an option, Netflix knows its $7 a month streaming fee is a hell of a lot more palatable than, say, iTunes charging $2.99 for a single episode of Dora the Explorer.

Partly because I’m against anti-piracy laws, and largely because I’m no fan of companies starting political action committees – I’d rather they funneled money into Congress in shady secret deals, like they did before, because then it’s easier to pretend the game isn’t rigged – I’ve been thinking about about axing my Netflix subscription. French action movies aside, I mostly use it for binge-watching sitcoms with my girlfriend, which doesn’t seem like too much of a loss until I actually neared pulling the trigger.

The anxiety I continue to feel begs the question: Why do we care about fake characters played by some jerk actors that we only get in 22 minute bursts of unrealistic hilarity? I mean, sitcoms have endured as some of the most popular programming options in TV history, which means millions of people are connecting enough with the characters to spend hours of their lives getting inundated with deodorant ads just to find out what windfall mysteriously appears next to our Jerrys and Charlies. Let me reiterate: Why the hell do we care?

The first thing that comes to mind is that it’s strange how we self-identify with characters. Think of the greatest sitcom of all time, Seinfeld: most fans of that show see themselves as a Jerry, Kramer, Elaine, Puddy, whatever (sorry if you’re a George, by the way), and view some of their friends as the rest of the supporting cast. I suppose that’s largely the reason the show was so successful – people thinking “Oh my god, that weird quirk of relationships totally happened to me!” – and that type of self-identification is exactly what Hollywood is shooting for. But Hollywood tugging at our psyches wouldn’t work if we didn’t already have an underlying propensity for it.

I think part of it has to do with the fact that mimicry is a key aspect in the evolution of learning. For example, Ottoni and Izar studied adorable capuchin monkeys which use stones to crack nuts. The pair found that a number of different, isolated populations of capuchins crack nuts with rocks, and evidence suggests that there a few genetically-based differences in behavior between the groups. Actually, it seems that the tool use is a “behavioral tradition” that’s socially learned, largely through behavior mimicry. Monkey see, monkey do, right?

Imitative learning isn’t limited to smart animals like monkeys, either. I really like pigeons, but they have brains the size of peas. They’re dumb as hell, and even they learn by watching others. Klein and Zentall wrote a great paper (free PDF) on the topic in 2003. They set up a reward system where if a pigeon pecked at certain sliding screen, it would open to release food. Pigeons that first watched others release the food were overwhelmingly more successful than pigeons that went on their own. (Oddly enough, this ability to mimic learning was a key aspect behind the pigeon-guided missile.)

So if the ability to learn by watching others is crucial to both our recent and distant ancestors (primates and birds), it’s surely an innate aspect of our biology. And I see potential for this type of learning coming into play with sitcoms. Watching How I Met Your Mother – a show that largely revolves around being locals at a bar – with friends, I’ve heard (and made) the comment that we all need a great local haunt to spend more time at, and, you know, really make it ours.

I mean, Cheers served as the enabler for an entire generation of squabbling bar flies. Meanwhile, seeing Jerry, George, and Elaine constantly find minor excuses for breaking up with people –and then ending up with yet another extremely attractive person – has made all of us wonder if we couldn’t do just a little bit better, and watching Bill Cosby live a successful, happy TV live has certainly led to the purchase of many a sweater.

You see these people that seem totally happy, and wonder how they do it. Even when shit gets bad, and it always does, they at least seem like they’ve got it all together. There are never any life disasters that don’t get solved within a few episodes, and even when some character gets killed off, it’s done with an unrealistically-smooth transition. (Two and a Half Men, anyone?)

While you’re subconsciously pondering all of this, you eventually fixate on the idea that if you were more like that character, perhaps you’d be successful too. For the rest of us struggling through the sheenless drudgery of everyday life, we figure copying some fake character’s behavior – ignoring fact that night after night of New York’s $7 pints, endless breakups, and sweater shopping would be far too costly and depressing for real life – is the key to our happiness.

And because the example being taught is so successful — everything always works out in a sitcom — you can’t stop watching for fear of missing out on the next key to success. It’s an endless feedback loop of good vibes, which is why you end up sitting through 15 straight episodes of the Big Bang Theory on a Sunday. I really need to cancel Netflix.

Follow Derek Mead on Twitter: @drderekmead.