After three seasons of the Traitors, this autumn the British public finally got to enjoy the Celebrity version of this ultimate game of detection. This was the first season of Traitors that I watched; I was hooked after half-watching the first episode with my housemates. But what was it about Celebrity Traitors that so appealed to Gen Z?
Firstly, there is no doubt that the structure of each episode of Celebrity Traitors is designed to make you invested in the show. Having the first episode end before we even knew for certain who the traitors’ first victim was meant that there was an almost-guaranteed audience sitting their ready for the second episode. Then, throughout the rest of the series, the producers made sure to increase the drama towards the end of each episode, with several of them ending with a very explicit cliffhanger. This drew audiences back each week and kept everyone on the edges of their seats.
Secondly, the BBC made sure to get a wide range of celebrities involved in the show which meant that it appealed to a range of different generations. It is clear that Niko was brought in to increase the show’s appeal to Gen Z, however despite him being voted out very early on, Gen Z remained hooked. We recognised many of the celebrities, even if they belonged to a different generation, and we knew from the start who we preferred. In my opinion, the was particularly significant in the case of Alan Carr given that he is a very familiar face to many Gen Z-ers. I was rooting for him to win for much of the series because of how much of an underdog he seemed to be in his role as a traitor. It was his presence on the show that really made me come back to watch each episode.
Perhaps the most significant part of Celebrity Traitors’ appeal to Gen Z was the social media buzz it created. Since we couldn’t escape the show on TikTok or Instagram, it became “event” TV: everyone wanted to watch it on the night so that they wouldn’t be faced with a spoiler on social media. We also saw this happen amongst Gen Z this summer with the finale of The Summer I Turned Pretty, which suggests that generating a social media buzz is the key to getting Gen Z to watch TV shows as they come out.
Moreover, the twice a week schedule meant that I was excited to watch the show. It neither dragged on for too long nor took up too much of my time each week. This is key to its Gen Z appeal since many of us have busy schedules which make keeping up with shows that are on every night very hard. Celebrity Traitors has clearly been an enormous hit with Gen Z, along with the rest of the British telly-watching public, and I am sure that lots of you are just as excited as I am for its second season next year!
Image Credits – The Movie DB
