What you need to know:
People usually develop parasocial relationships with the characters or situations of a series, leaving a void when it ends.
If you have also felt emptiness, sadness, pain and even denial when a series endsyou can be calm, because it doesn’t just happen to you. The grief of seeing your favorite series end forever exists, and provokes a real reaction within you.
There are already several studies that have proven why we experience grief when we watch that final episode of the last season. If a grief similar to the loss of a loved one or when some stage of our lives ends.
‘Neighbours’, the series that broke Australia’s heart
The most recent is a study done in Australia, after the end of Neighbors in 2022. We talk about a series that began airing in 1985, so it was 37 years and 40 seasons on the air.
As you surely imagine, the impact of the final episode of a series as long as that one was something brutal. “Fans talked about the end of the series as if they were losing a friend,” said Adam Garace, who led the study, published in the journal PLOS ONE.
Pain, sadness, feelings of loss, loneliness, anger and even the feeling of meaninglessness, were some of the emotions that the audience of that series experienced with the end. The results were obtained after surveying 1,289 people who watched the series for years, some since 1985.
Why do we experience grief when a series ends?
And what has been said, Experiencing grief when our favorite series ends is not something imaginary or an exaggeration.. Watching a series generates very real reactions, a emotional stimulation that is broken when that final chapter arrives.
The study highlights that while enjoying a series, emotions of company, pleasure, identification with a character, adrenaline from unlived experiences, fear that something will happen to that character, suspense and more, that’s why There is a feeling of emptiness when the story comes to an end, especially when the ending of one or more characters is not what was expected.
This is what is called parasocial relationships, that is to say, when a person creates a relationship with a person they do not know. It happens with celebrities and characters from our favorite series.
Dr. Gabriela Orozco, a specialist in behavioral neurosciences, explained the above a few years ago in Diners magazine: “We get hooked on a series because they have positive reward reinforcers that make us feel good. Brain mechanisms are activated and make us want to do something again that made us feel good, that we liked.”; and that’s why we want to continue and continue watching that series.
And be careful, this is not a situation exclusive to the series. It also happens with books, movies and even video games.. The parasocial relationship established with one or several characters, or with the idea of living in a non-existent world, causes there to be emotions such as sadness, emptiness, pain, loss and loneliness when we see that relationship come to an end forever.
There are people more likely to create parasocial relationships… and suffer when their favorite series ends
More studies have been done with series such as FriendsBreaking Bad either Dr Houseand In all of them there have been cases of mourning when they end. However, not all of us experience the same grief; Some people experience sadness to the point of crying, but others come out of that emptiness more quickly.
Happens that There are people more likely to suffer and get down, because they create more intense parasocial relationships. depending on your personality.
Dr. Orozco herself concluded after a 2015 study at the University of Texas, that Those who suffer the most from grief are those who have a tendency to generate addictionsthat is, they find such great reward and pleasure in their series, that They experience something similar to withdrawal syndrome when it ends.
“The results showed that people felt alone and lacked self-regulation (Less ability to regulate emotional states and greater difficulty in creating and maintaining motivation and activation). Your negative feelings and emotions increased”.
It is normal to experience grief at the end of a series, but you have to be careful about taking it to the extreme.
Returning to the study carried out after the end of NeighborsAdam Garace also emphasizes that although it is normal to feel sad or down, It can reach an extreme point if we forget that this series is not part of our reality, and that its characters are not living in our world.
“Could be problematic if it comes at the expense of real-world relationships.” or if an attempt is made to exclusively satisfy the needs for social connection through parasocial and fictitious relationships”, he points out. In cases like this, consulting a specialist could be a good idea.
And what to do when you experience grief over the end of a series?
Now, even if grief remains at healthy levels, that feeling of emptiness and loss can be there and feel dull. New York Times critic Margaret Lyons suggested a few years ago that producers should put together a one-hour special to help their audience say goodbye to their favorite series.
But in case that does not happen, the psychologist Julia Pascual (cited by the express newspaper), recommended trying to remember only the good things about the series, what you liked most about her. Furthermore, it might be useful to keep in mind that thanks to streaming, Now it is possible to rewatch your favorite series and episodes over and over again.
We only have to ask, Which series broke your heart or which one took you the longest to get through when you reached its final chapter?
