Day: January 11, 2006

Obsession

Ob·ses·sion

Pro­nun­ci­a­tion: ‘äb- se- sh&n

Func­tion: noun

Def­i­n­i­tion: An extend­ed peri­od of time spent view­ing count­less episodes of shows or movies in a sim­i­lar genre or the same series because one has become seem­ing­ly addicted.

Synonym(s): Butt-numb-o-thon (see Har­ry Knowles), addic­tion, OCD.

Ety­mol­o­gy: Derived from obses­sion (note the stress on the first syl­la­ble for the new deriva­tion), a direct result of DVD sales of entire sea­sons of tele­vi­sion shows and movie col­lec­tions in a sin­gle pack­age and/or the TiVo Sea­son Pass feature.

Vari­ants: Orb Ses­sion, Obsessathon.

Exam­ple: Once I watched the pilot episode of “Arrest­ed Devel­op­ment,” I sim­ply could­n’t sleep until I had seen every episode I could get my hands on.