I don’t have the scrolling apps. I know they’re addictive and I know I don’t want to get caught in that. I have limited time and I dislike spending it doing boring to useless things. At least I didn't. I recently started using Youtube and I watched a short. Just one. And because it was so short I watched another. You see where this is going. Google knows all and it knows I watched Suits a while back.

It starts sending me short after short of Suits, and while they all had the same formula, they were fun and addicting. I watched them one after another. The TV show suits has a simple premise. Sharp dressed lawyers with quipy retorts argue against each other to dramatic music. Everyone is also incredibly attractive. Which helps.

There is a reason why people are drawn to stories that let them experience different emotions and feelings. To give a concrete example. There is a enjoyable aspect to being cocky and rubbing it in someone’s face. But it’s hard to let yourself enjoy it without feeling dirty. Without feeling like a bully. It’s rare to find an appropriate situation where you can lord this over someone. But in stories, all situations can be controlled. It means that in Suits, the story can have Smug Lawyer come in, insult the secretary, lean towards being misogynistic, possibly racist or otherwise, and throw their weight around and bully the main characters, Mike and Harvey. Smug Lawyer has the upper hand.

The episode is going to weave in and out and around a case until right at the end where Mike or Harvey have a moment of inspiration, another character to represent the audience will be there to ask them “you thought of something?” just in time for them to run out of the room and cut to a meeting with Smug Lawyer. At this point, we know that Mike or Harvey has an ace up their sleeve. They match haughtiness and it throws off Smug Lawyer. He’s suspicious but also overly confident and continues to insult them, which only makes the audience hate him more. Mike turns the table using his perfect photographic movie and Harvey with a lavish quip insults
the Smug Lawyer and tears him down. It’s a satisfying moment. Every bully moment Smug has thrown in Harvey’s face comes back around, and now we the audience are fully justified in lording it over them. Being a bully is immoral. But, if you bully the right person, it can be fun. Not necessarily
righteous, but it can be fun. And that’s what stories and shows like Suits lets you do. It lets you enjoy that feeling you don’t normally have and can’t normally enjoy.

This is what the show does. It’s funny because the idea doesn’t even have to change. The only thing that changes from episode to episode is the Smug Lawyer. It changes to Sleazy Lawyer to Rude Lawyer to Prude Lawyer to Whoever. To add to the desperation and feeling, Mike or Harvey will make a mistake. They’ll go too far. They’ll cross a line and make a mistake, and the stakes are raised. Now instead of just Smugness, their own client turns on them, and possibly the law itself is going against them. The danger grows more and more and it draws the audience in to a greater degree because they need to see how it ends. They need to see that our characters get to the end and come out triumphant. The farther down, the greater the upward journey.

This is what Suits does so well, and what made it hard for me to watch after a few seasons. Nothing changed, and nothing had to. The reason why people like the story is because of the cool moments where Mike and Harvey swoop in, save the day, look suave, and dish it back to the bully, and it feels good. Those moments feel good and we the audience love it. The clips take those moments and shorten them to the smallest possible and that makes them so addicting.

Music by Simon Swerwer,
Cuggin's Cove,
Emergence,
Inith and Od Travel North