It’s a dilemma we’ve all faced: everyone in your social orbit has watched that television show, but you haven’t seen a frame. Do you confess to your cultural faux pas or brazenly lie to keep your place at the water cooler?
Research by Radio Times suggests that more than half of people would prefer to save face and be dishonest.
The poll of 1,300 readers found that 52 per cent had lied about having seen a series everyone was talking about.
The unweighted research also cast light on the programmes we feel compelled to lie about. Top of the list was Stranger Things, Netflix’s cult supernatural thriller set in 1980s Indiana. Starring Millie Bobby Brown, three seasons of Stranger Things have streamed on Netflix, with a fourth due to premiere next year. Fourteen per cent of Radio Times readers said they had claimed to have watched the global hit when in fact they had not.
Game of Thrones was next in line, with 10 per cent of people having lied about taking a voyage to Westeros for HBO’s eight-season long fantasy drama, which reached its climax in 2019 after nearly a decade.
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Breaking Bad, which was voted the third best show of the 21st century in a BBC poll, also featured on the list of lied-about programmes. Seven per cent of respondents in the poll said they had talked about it even though they had never seen it.
People also dusted off their knowledge of the royal family to blag their way through conversations about Netflix’s The Crown. Completing the top five was Schitt’s Creek, the Emmy award-winning Canadian television sitcom that streams on Netflix.
Tim Glanfield, RadioTimes.com’s editorial director, said: “From the water cooler at work to dinner parties and pub tables up and down the land, the latest and the greatest shows often dominate conversation.
“Our survey illustrates just how much we love talking about TV. However, it’s a surprise to see just how many of us are not completely honest about what we’ve seen. With so much choice in a truly golden age of TV it’s almost impossible to see everything, so don’t be afraid to admit you’ve never tuned in.”
The poll echoes a survey from 2013 which found that the majority of people pretended to have read classic books in order to appear more intelligent. Around a quarter of people were prepared to lie to hide the fact that they had not read George Orwell’s 1984, while other books which people claimed to have read but had not included Tolstoy’s War and Peace, Great Expectations by Charles Dickens and The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger.
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Other surveys found that Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, The Lord of the Rings and Anna Karenina were among the most lied-about books.
People also lie about having seen films. The Godfather was the movie people were most likely to have claimed they had watched when they hadn’t, followed by Casablanca and Taxi Driver, according to a 2011 survey by the movie rental company Lovefilm.
Top five most lied-about series
Stranger Things
Children in a small town in 1980s Indiana deal with supernatural forces and the trials of adolescence.
Game of Thrones
Sprawling fantasy epic based on the novels of George RR Martin.
Breaking Bad
A chemistry teacher with cancer and a former student produce and sell crystal meth.
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The Crown
Dramatised account of the Queen’s reign, from high politics to royal romances.
Schitt’s Creek
Sitcom about a family who lose their fortune and move to Schitt’s Creek, a small town they once bought as a joke, where they must change their ways.
