The show that united many — in frustration

Editor’s Note: This article contains spoilers to the Amazon Prime series “The Summer I Turned Pretty.”

Wednesday nights were booked, couches were crowded and shrieks filled the halls. Each week brought the same questions: Would it be thrilling, disappointing or just plain cringey?

For 11 weeks, Wednesday nights belonged to “The Summer I Turned Pretty.”

What is it about this show that gets so many people riled up? What is it about the storyline that nobody actually wants to be stuck in the middle of? And why does a show often labeled as “cringey” keep our eyes glued to the screen?

I went on a search to find out.

What is “The Summer I Turned Pretty”?

If you haven’t heard of “The Summer I Turned Pretty,” where have you retreated to the past couple of months, and how did you block out all the endless theories leading up to each Wednesday? 

To bring you up to speed, here is a quick version. 

In the Amazon Prime series produced by Jenny Han, the main character, Belly, jumps from being in a relationship with one brother to the next, and by the end of the season, returns to the original. The season closes with a teaser for a future movie.

Along the way, there is cheating, a cancelled wedding, plenty of lying and just about every unhealthy relationship trope you can imagine.

Which brings us back to the questions: Why this show? Why is it so popular?

Let’s find out

I looked first at the relationships in the series. Do we watch because we secretly romanticize Belly’s life and her choices?

For me, this was an easy no. Being stuck between two brothers, breaking up a family and a marriage and being cheated on is not exactly a dream scenario.

Unlike most romantic comedies, where you imagine yourself as the main character being swooned over, I simply hated Belly and wasn’t alone in this sentiment. 

“I don’t know about putting myself in Belly’s shoes,” Betsy Sonneland, a fourth-year art major, said. “She would definitely make weird decisions.”

In neuroscientist Aditi Subramaniam’s article, “Why We Love Rom-Coms and Christmas Movies,” with Psychology Today, she writes that we love romantic comedies because they are comforting.

“Sometimes all we need is the warm, fuzzy feeling inside that tells us all’s well with the world, and I cannot think of anything better than a rom-com to do so,” Subramaniam wrote.

But “The Summer I Turned Pretty” is not that kind of romantic comedy. Instead of warm and fuzzy, it delivers frustration, tension and sometimes outright anger.

During about 10 of the 11 episodes I watched, my friends and I hurled insults at the screen and wondered when one thing would start to go our way. 

“Jeremiah needs a brain transplant,” Faith Russell, a third-year child development major, said. 

Remember, Jeremiah, one of the brothers in the love triangle, is supposed to be who we are rooting for — at least in the first half of the season.

That frustration with the characters and the show itself, though, may be the point. We get hooked. 

A Forbes article, “A Psychologist Explains Why We ‘Hate-Watch’ Cringe TV,” cites research from the Journal of Experimental Psychology, which found that as we experience negative emotions, like hatred against a character or show, it can release hormones such as oxytocin, dopamine or serotonin, leaving us happy. 

Russell said she never planned to watch the series, knowing its reputation for being cringey. 

“It would kind of be like I was being tortured,” she said. 

What changed her mind was pressure from friends to join a watch party.

“My friends and I are going to make fun of this; it’s going to be funny,” Russell said.

And that is where the draw deepens. 

As the article continues, it pulls research from “Anti-Fandom: Dislike and Hate in the Digital Age” to explain how, when our friends or community around us share a mutual hatred of something, it leads us to feel supported and triggers that positive feeling. 

The community aspect was a common thread among nearly everyone I spoke with. They weren’t watching this show by themselves.

Perrin Strickler, a second-year physics major and resident assistant in Klassen Hall, said she hosted a watch party for her hall because she knew “it would be a good way to connect and get people to come out and engage.” 

At one point, Sonneland had 20 people over to watch an episode, which she said resulted in a noise complaint from neighbors. 

Russell said she “would have to be hitting rock bottom to be watching it alone.”

The consensus

So, did I find the real reason why we all kept going back to “The Summer I Turned Pretty”? The answer is probably not. I don’t know if any of us really know why we keep going back to a show we define as cringey. 

What I do know is that for 11 weeks, the show gave us a reason to gather, talk, laugh and bond over a shared hatred for fictional characters. And with Jenny Han already teasing what is next, chances are, we’ll all be back together to hate-watch a reunion movie soon.