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When it comes to entertainment options鈥攅specially television and movies鈥攕ometimes we deliberately choose one we expect to be terrible.

This is counter to typical consumer behavior. We don鈥檛 seek out bad appliances or poorly crafted household goods, and a flood of awful restaurant reviews won鈥檛 send us scrambling for a reservation. But a widely panned movie with the right mix of campy dialogue, off-the-wall plot twists and cheap special effects seems harder to resist. In fact, we might prefer to watch a spectacular failure over mediocre alternatives that are 鈥渂etter鈥� in most respects.听

There鈥檚 a term for this phenomenon: 鈥渟o bad it鈥檚 good,鈥� which a new research paper explores in depth.

The paper opens with examples of so-bad-they're-good sensations, including the 2003 film 鈥淭he Room,鈥� considered among the worst movies ever made, and the 2011 music video for Rebecca Black鈥檚 song 鈥淔riday,鈥� which amassed more than 100 million views on YouTube.听

鈥淲ith entertainment, there's something appealing about the worst available option that makes people want to check it out,鈥� said Amit Bhattacharjee, an associate professor of marketing in the Leeds School of Business and co-author of the , published in November 2023 in the Journal of Consumer Psychology.听

The research, led by Evan Weingarten of Arizona State University鈥檚 W.P. Carey School of Business and also co-authored by Patti Williams of the University of Pennsylvania鈥檚 Wharton School of business, sought to understand this 鈥減reference for badness,鈥� Bhattacharjee said.听

Minimal investment and immediate enjoyment

The researchers demonstrate that the appeal of choosing bad options over better ones depends on the costs involved. Because it鈥檚 hard to justify spending money on lower-quality products with less functional value, we opt for higher-quality options whenever we care about their usefulness or need them to achieve specific tasks.听

This helps explain why consumers are more drawn to badness in entertainment contexts: They care more about immediate enjoyment than usefulness when making these choices, and the investment required is minimal compared to other purchases.听

When you choose to consume a movie, video clip, song or meme you expect to be bad, you鈥檙e mainly just sacrificing your time, according to Bhattacharjee. Because we tend to view spending time differently from spending money, he said, 鈥淚t feels relatively costless to watch something dumb that is not going to enrich you intellectually or be useful to you in any way.鈥�

The researchers conclude that one of the primary reasons consumers are drawn to terrible options is the extent and nature of the entertainment value they offer. 鈥淭here are some qualities and virtues the worst option has that the best option doesn't,鈥� Bhattacharjee said. 鈥淭he worst is more likely to be funny, absurd and ridiculous.鈥�

What is bad, though?

The study is the first to provide controlled, empirical evidence that consumers will choose an option because they themselves expect it to be bad. That is, these are not instances of consumers choosing options they believe to be high in quality but most others deem low in quality. Nonetheless, what鈥檚 considered 鈥渂ad鈥� is still highly subjective and varies widely.听

For example, the 鈥淪harknado鈥� franchise is an oft-cited example of 鈥渟o bad it鈥檚 good鈥� content, with Rotten Tomatoes calling it 鈥減roudly, shamelessly, and gloriously brainless.鈥� Redditors who enjoy those films mostly agree, though some also characterize it as good or at least 鈥渙verhated.鈥� Similar online debate rages about the 2023 film 鈥淐ocaine Bear鈥� and this year鈥檚 superhero movie 鈥淢adame Web,鈥� which some reviewers say achieves 鈥淪BIG鈥� status and others label mediocre or just 鈥渂oring bad.鈥�

To study these preferences using a blank slate free of participants鈥� prior knowledge and associations, the researchers conducted 12 experiments focused on different types of content, including jokes, karaoke performances, auditions for the TV show 鈥淪o You Think You Can Dance,鈥� and art posted on Reddit. In each category, participants were asked to select what to consume among options grouped by external quality ratings ranging from very high to very low (for example, nine choice options ranging from one star up to nine听stars in average quality ratings from previous audiences).听

Within the first experiment, which examined choices of jokes, the researchers found that most participants unsurprisingly preferred the best-rated joke available. However, the worst-rated joke was consistently chosen over mediocre ones with better ratings. The other experiments yielded similar results, and the same pattern of choices consistently emerged across different types of content and presentation formats.听

Bhattacharjee suggested that this research offers a starting point to explore the 鈥渄imensionality of badness,鈥� as the paper puts it. For instance, comparing the appeal of badness due to low-quality execution versus badness due to excellent execution in service of poor taste might yield additional insights.

Open questions also remain about other psychological and social factors that contribute to this phenomenon. 鈥淭here are many potentially interesting reasons why people might choose something that flagrantly violates their standards of taste,鈥� Bhattacharjee said.

There is a broader 鈥渇ascination with failure鈥� that鈥檚 palpable in politics and celebrity culture as well as daily life, he added. Mocking a colossal social blunder may make people feel better about themselves, or simply enable them to enjoy taking part in a viral trend. And as illustrated by the popularity of subreddits like r/ATBGE: Awful Taste But Great Execution and the enduring cult following around films like 鈥淭he Rocky Horror Picture Show,鈥� anti-fandom can create a sense of community and offer a safe space to enjoy silliness.听

There鈥檚 also a status-y aspect of declaring something 鈥渟o bad it鈥檚 good,鈥� Bhattacharjee pointed out, since praising entertainment that dramatically violates quality standards requires enough expertise to understand those standards.

鈥淚t鈥檚 another way to signal to other people: I know what鈥檚 good, because this is the opposite,鈥� he said. At the same time, it suggests a lack of blind allegiance to social consensus, an attractive quality in itself. Enjoying what鈥檚 bad may be another route to pursuing what鈥檚 socially good, something that likely underlies a wide array of seemingly puzzling cultural phenomena.听