Yet, if you are like most people, you spend 20 minutes scrolling through Netflix just to give up and watch The Office for the tenth time. You have access to the entire history of cinema in your pocket, yet you feel like there is "nothing on."
Entertainment has stopped being an activity and has become a sedative. Take a look at the top 10 box office hits of last year. Now take a shot every time you see a sequel, a prequel, a spin-off, or a cinematic universe. (Please drink responsibly; you will be drunk by number three).
The result? We have lost the ability to struggle with art. If a movie is slow, we turn it off. If a song has a weird time signature, we skip it. The algorithm optimizes for instant gratification , not lasting impact. Here is the most disturbing trend in modern media: We don't actually watch things anymore. We supervise them. AussieDoll.17.04.18.Leila.Sex.Doll.Bedroom.XXX....
We are living in the Golden Age of entertainment. Or is it the Gilded Age?
So, turn off the auto-play. Put down the phone. And actually press play. Yet, if you are like most people, you
Today, the algorithm has turned us all into curators of our own reality. Your For You Page is entirely different from mine. We no longer share a cultural center. Entertainment has shifted from a campfire (everyone gathered around one light) to a dark room (everyone staring at their own individual screens).
How many of you have put on a true crime documentary only to scroll through Reddit for the entire runtime? We treat dialogue as background radiation. We have trained our brains to require a dopamine hit every 30 seconds, to the point where a two-hour movie feels like a marathon. Now take a shot every time you see
We are trapped in the IP (Intellectual Property) Apocalypse. Studios are terrified of originality because original things are risky. Instead, they reboot Harry Potter , make a Joker musical, or stretch a 300-page novel into a 10-hour miniseries.