What does doom scrolling teach us about acting?

You’re on your phone with your thumb hurling 3-4 pieces of new information at you every second. Something stops you. A video. Maybe it’s a person trying to throw a CD across a room and make it land on a thumbtack. Maybe it’s a chocolatier creating a completely edible 15-foot-tall dinosaur. Maybe it’s dog with short legs trying desperately to get on the couch but failing repeatedly.

What do these have in common and what the heck can they teach us about acting?

To answer this, we’re actually not going to look at the videos. We’re going to look at ourselves.

What is it that drew us to this video? And, to be even more to the point, when do we lose interest in the video and keep scrolling?

To answer this, let’s first take a small departure.

As humans, we like to see others put themselves at risk. It’s a part of our psychology... a part of our survival instinct as we learn from watching others fail and preparing ourselves for our own probabilities.

It’s a similar phenomenon to why puppies play fight with each other and why, when we’re left alone, our brains usually wander to the scariest thoughts... We are imagining the riskiest events so that we are at least somewhat prepared if and when a similar situation presents itself to us.

We have no need to play out the best turn of events because there’s no risk involved there. What would you do if you won the lottery? Well, you’d cash the check and figure it out from there.

Now, back to the videos.

What draws us to these videos is that we don’t know how they’re going to turn out. Will we ever see the CD land perfectly on the thumbtack and after how many grueling hours? Will the chocolate dinosaur crumble under its weight and what if it’s ugly? Will the dog finally achieve its climb or will it give up and lay on the floor?

We don’t watch these videos for the solutions. We watch it for the problems. And, once we see the solution, we lose interest.

Now, flip the script as you acknowledge what draws the audience in. If they’re bored once we get to a solution, how do we keep them engaged?

By risking. By failing. By not knowing if we’ll ever reach our goal. By learning in real time and then adjusting.

If we, as actors, go into an exploration space such as a rehearsal room, set, self-tape setup, stage, or anywhere where there might be an audience and have “the answers,” the audience will lose focus. They’ll lose interest. They’ll fight to be engaged because they know that is their role but they will be bored and tune out, to some extent.

Where is the joy in this, for either the actor or the audience?

As actors, our job is not to show up with the solution. Our job is to do something, fail, make an adjustment, and do it again. To figure it out on the fly. To have a goal but not know how it’s going to be achieved.

If humanity learns from watching others take risks? Then risk, we must.

Don’t let them scroll past you.