There is something nasty to be said about a television program that so accidentally yet perfectly captures the abject experience of living through a late stage of civilizational putrefaction. The acrid humor of the Netflix docuseries Tiger King was the right flavor for the mounting grievances and absurdities of the year 2020, its nightmarish politics, our sudden and rapid disabling at the hands of a global pandemic, and a growing acceptance of the possibility that we may have driven the car off the edge of the cliff. It seemed that as we hung in the threshold between normalcy and apocalypse, the release of Tiger King coincided with our immediate need to process collective feeling, mutual comfort, and momentary reassurance, as the pathologies of global capitalism and bioinsecurities (Ahuja, 2016) took up residence in our living rooms. Yet the visceral experience of watching this particular series, in addition to delivering the entertaining schadenfreude it presumed to offer, also exposed a rhythmic conditioning to shock and awe that produced our banal abjection as spectators of crises. If it seems too simple to suggest that mere escapism from grim realities propelled Tiger King into being an omnipresent text with an extensive discursive reach, it is probably because there remains, at least for me, a lingering aftertaste of something bitter and hopeless that has successfully ruined the experience of cackling and balking through binge-watching every episode with a group of friends on Zoom.

中文翻译：

---

《虎王》中无聊的恐怖

关于电视节目，这是令人讨厌的话，它偶然地却完美地捕捉了在文明腐朽的晚期生活的痛苦经历。Netflix纪录片系列《虎王》（Tiger King）的辛辣幽默是2020年怨气与荒谬，其噩梦般的政治，在全球大流行中突然而迅速致残的原因，以及人们日益接受我们的可能性的正确味道。可能使汽车驶离悬崖边缘。似乎当我们陷入正常与世界末日之间的门槛时，老虎王的释放随着全球资本主义和生物不安全的病态（Ahuja，2016）迁入我们的起居室，我们迫切需要处理集体感觉，相互安慰和暂时的放心。然而，观看这部特别剧集的内心体验，除了提供了它假定提供的有趣的幸灾乐祸外，还使节奏和震撼力和敬畏气氛暴露了出来，使我们成为危机的旁观者而平淡无奇。如果说过于简单，表明严峻的现实仅仅是逃避现实推动了虎王 成为无所不在的文本，具有广泛的话语范围，这可能是因为，至少对我而言，余味持久而苦涩而无望，这已经成功地破坏了通过暴饮暴食观看与小组一起观看每一集的经验Zoom上的朋友。