television - Sari Piittinen

When fun things are also bad for you

Posted on February 1, 2026February 1, 2026 by Sari Piittinen

I have been avoiding going to Twitch for a week now. I know, it’s not that long a time, but this is a website I might usually have open for 12 hours each day as background noise. And that’s how I’ve considered it, just harmless background noise, although it’s also had a strong social component for me. For the uninitiated ones, Twitch is a streaming platform – mostly for gaming, but people can theoretically stream anything, like arts or just chatting, exercise or cooking.

The thing is, I don’t go out much because a lot of it isn’t super enjoyable to me. Places are loud, I don’t really know people, and I’m terrible at meeting new ones. I get extremely self-conscious and some social skills I just lack entirely (turn-taking in conversation, for example, is a complete fucking mystery to me). Over the past few years, Twitch has become the platform for me to meet new people using my favourite means of communication, writing in chat. People there tend to find me funny and cute, and people who know me tend to greet me happily. It feels good.

The problem is, this chick has trauma. And this has caused me to have issues with people-pleasing to the point where even now at 40, I still find it difficult to express a differing opinion, I avoid confrontation as much as possible, and sometimes may not even know what my opinion on something is. I feel some kind of a duty to be around for other people, even if they don’t really do the same in return. Often, if I watch a movie or if I’m listening to music with someone, we go with the other person’s pick because it doesn’t really even occur to me that someone might be interested in the same thing as me. I also sense other people’s emotions easily and strongly, and they affect my own. When someone goes quiet, I can tell if there is a negative feeling behind it, and it causes me a lot of anxiety.

What does this have to do with Twitch? When I see that a friend is streaming, it’s not just a simple feeling of wanting to say hi, but I also feel that in some way it’s my responsibility to go over and hang out for as long as I can. Because viewers and chatters on Twitch are currency and of course I want to support the people that I like. However… I’ve clearly never had any kind of healthy boundaries with this. If a streamer has a more or less steady schedule and I know it, I may feel like I have to be there. I may also stick to a stream even if it’s not the best place for me to be at that time. There may be sounds that are bothering me, or the streamer might be having a bad time with a game, and their frustration is also affecting my emotions. Or I might really want to do something else, like watch a tv show, but I feel like I can’t leave the stream because it would be “rude”.

I’ve managed to turn Twitch into a prison. A prison where I really like my fellow inmates, but still a prison.

Something that’s supposed to be “harmless” and “fun” has been slowly overwhelming me to the point where I feel like I’ve been living in autistic pre-burnout (not an official term) for who knows how long. I’ve been extremely emotional and irritable, I’ve had moments when my own cats’ meowing has been driving me insane, I’ve slipped easily into negative thoughts, I’ve been exhausted, and although I’ve kept playing some games and watching tv and movies, I haven’t felt as excited about those things as I have sometimes in the past. I’ve struggled with normal daily life decisions and when I’ve tried to do seemingly ordinary stuff like go to the office two days in a row, I may have been so overwhelmed at the end that I’ve burst into tears 20 minutes after getting home. Because every last drop of energy has been squeezed out of me. I’ve also been eating a lot more sugar for comfort and dopamine. Basically I’ve been a mess, and not the best for myself or my cats. Arguably not even the best to my friends, even if I’ve so desperately tried to be good for them.

In her video about pre-burnout, Taylor (Mom on the Spectrum) talks about removing things from your life to create a little breathing room, and it feels like that’s what I’ve been doing. By stepping back from Twitch, I can live based on my own schedule instead of other people’s. I have fewer social obligations. I can listen to music – my music – and play my games instead of watching other people play theirs. The cost is not hearing my friends’ voices on a daily basis or knowing what they’re up to – but I also feel it’s sad that I have to tune into a stream to find out. It’s like I’ve become a participant of a broadcast culture where you don’t really speak to people individually anymore, but to find out how someone is doing, you have to catch the show. And this is where we also get to the parasocial level, but that’s probably too big a discussion for here and now.

My break from Twitch so far has been very good for me. I haven’t solved all of my anxiety and exhaustion problems, no, but… I’ve started to get excited about things again. Fandom things, new things as well as old. The long-awaited Terraria update is out and I can play it whenever I want! I finally saw Stranger Things season 4 so I could join the masses and fiercely fall in love with Eddie Munson! I’ve been a slightly better cat momma and if I’ve cried, it’s been for a reason that makes sense (like loss) and not just general overwhelm or intrusive brain goblin thoughts. And while I haven’t really talked much to my Twitch friends, I’ve been chatting more with some of my older ones and in a way remembered why we are friends. It has also been easier for me to fight back jealousy and other negative thoughts. I still get them, of course, but my reaction is more of an “oh well, so what?”

My problem is that I don’t really know what to do with Twitch now. Is it a place that will always be damaging to me because of the expectations that I place on myself? Is there a way I could pop in now in then, establish boundaries, and leave the moment I no longer feel good? Is this an issue that I need to find a solution for at all – do I need to be on Twitch? Or is my desire to find a solution just another sign of me not wanting to let other people down and disappoint them, even if returning came at a cost to my wellbeing? Which ones, if any, of my friendships are the kind that could last even without my presence there? Is it a real friendship if it relies on a single platform? It’s hard because I care about people deeply, but there has to be a way for us to connect in a way that doesn’t harm me or feel like a transaction of some kind (i.e. I am here and your channel benefits from me being here).

Right now, I choose to continue my break. I popped in for a few minutes in two streams yesterday and realized I kind of couldn’t stomach it more than that. Something in me is rejecting it now. It’s like it turned into poison overnight. This was unexpected. I’ve taken a break from Twitch before, for a different reason, but back then I kind of couldn’t wait to get back in there. This time it’s different. To be continued…

Returning to classic tv viewing habits

Posted on June 18, 2020June 18, 2020 by Sari Piittinen

It’s no news that the popularity of streaming services has changed the way in which most people watch tv. In recent years I, too, had become a person who sits down to watch several episodes of the same show in a row. However, some weeks ago I noticed that this wasn’t really working well anymore. The list of shows I was interested in kept growing and growing – including new seasons of tv shows that I already loved. Not to mention that many of them were rather heavily dramatic, detailed and narratively rich shows, which meant that watching more than two episodes in a row was almost a disservice to them.

I should probably mention here that tv is my favourite format of visual storytelling. I love having time to get to know and fall in love with the characters and watching stories develop and unfold over time. I’ve been a tv girl since before its current golden era started; I used to have written schedules to catch shows on the pre-streaming television, and tape shows if two favourite ones were on at the same time. Along with games, it’s been an important hobby that has enrichened my imagination.

So to fix my current tv viewing troubles, I went back in time and made a tv schedule. There’s a tv show for each day, and two shows for some days. It’s not a very strict schedule. If I don’t have time to watch tv some day, it’s ok to do it later. It may not initially seem very efficient to go back to the habit of watching only one episode a week, but I’ve had great success with progressing on several of the shows I’m interested in, rather than struggling with trying to prioritize one or three. It also allows me to really appreciate the show and what’s happening in it. Last week I finished catching up with Westworld, something that otherwise might have taken much longer even if I had the freedom to do it at any time. It’s nice to always have an idea of what to watch; no decision power is wasted because the decision has been already made.

A screenshot from Better Call Saul, Netflix

So what are the tv shows currently on my plate? Better Call Saul, The Good Fight, The Crown, Preacher, Deadwood, Rome (filling the spot freed by Westworld), The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and The Chi. All of these shows are very enjoyable (the one that makes me hesitate the most is Preacher, but even that one is rather entertaining in all its ridiculousness). Better Call Saul has become one of my all-time favourites, like watching a glorious trainwreck in slow motion while simultaneously loving the train and hoping nobody gets hurt (but they will). The two I would love to highlight now are The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and The Chi because in comparison to the other shows, they are the ones I’ve heard and read the least about elsewhere although they are very, very good (well, I’m only about 5 episodes into The Chi, but considering it’s highly rated I have no reason to believe it will drastically drop in quality).

A screenshot from The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Amazon Prime

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is delightfully different from the other shows I’m watching. It’s about a housewife trying to break into stand-up comedy in the turn of 1950s-1960s. You might already guess that it’s hilarious. The dialogue is great, the casting for each role is perfect (including the tiniest supporting roles), and it’s a feast for the eyes with its fashion and stylistic choices. Because it’s not violent, I can even recommend it to friends who’d shudder at many of the other shows I watch. It’s definitely a show to fall in love with.

The Chi, on the contrary, is closely connected to violence in the sense that a boy’s murder starts a kind of a chain reaction of events that affects the lives of many in the community. On one hand, the viewer feels anxiety fearing the dark turn that the lives of the characters appear to be on the verge of taking, but on the other, we also see resilience and defiance against expectations, and efforts to atone for one’s actions. One of the characters I’m especially invested in is Emmett who suddenly has to take responsibility for raising his baby son. He’s a young man unequipped, unprepared, and at least at the beginning entirely unwilling to take on this role, but ends up accepting the responsibility. Where this responsibility takes him, however, remains for me to be seen (I’m still at episode 5 of season 1). Like in real life, the best intentions don’t seem to always have desired outcomes on this show. The narrative thread connects the characters and their stories beautifully together. The characters are complex and I can’t wait to see more of their layers peeled in time.

Since the tv schedule plan has been working so well, I’m going to keep it up for now and hopefully enjoy more of these worlds and characters, and introduce myself to new ones once I’m all caught up!