Ever see Dhar Mann brainrot videos? I don't see it going anywhere. It's a big reason why films aren't good anymore. Content producers cater to the intellectual tastes of their respective societies. Long story short, we get what we deserve. Long live Criterion Collection for the handful of us who abstain from mass produced trash.
This resonates. Movies lack depth nowadays, especially cultural depth.
They do sometimes convey interesting messages and they are well produced and captivating but they lack soul. I think about films like "Forest Gump". Personally, I really liked the film, maybe other people didn't like it as much but I found it to be unique and culturally enriching. I'm not even American but I could relate. Modern "movies" usually don't have enough character development; or if they do, it's highly generic. Any character development in modern movies is focused on making the character relatable to the most common denominator among the masses so they lack individuality.
It's even telling that we have separate words "film" and "movies". It reminds me of the book "Brave New World" which is set in the future; they have something called "Feelies" which is described as a complete visual and sensory experience but they don't teach you anything; they are all focused on very narrow physical experiences. Everything in BNW is designed in a way to reduce people's awareness and reduce diversity of thought to the point that they never think to ask certain questions.
There's plenty of good film and TV out there, and you don't even have to look hard to find it. I find this attitude to not just elitist but lazy and ignorant.
Sadly it doesn't get nearly the amount of attention it deserves. Just picking adult animation as another example, for every series like Scavengers Reign (cancelled after 1 season), there's what, two dozen low brow family guy knockoffs?
It wasn't cancelled per se, rather HBO only ordered a single season and they never renewed the show. Honestly it's astounding that it got one season at all considering what HBO were doing to animated series at the time.
The show is fantastic but as far as I'm aware they didn't pull great view numbers, which can probably be attributed to some less than stellar advertising.
That's true. I only heard of it because I follow Charles Huettner on social media. If it had been a couple of months later, after I'd deleted Instagram, I'd never have known.
KOTOR, both of them but especially the 2nd are built on concepts (post-nihilist existentialism amongst other, to me it's the most obvious) that drive the story. I feel like nowadays, AAA games want to avoid philosophical stuff, or rather keep it way too simple, and we have shit stories (fallout 4/Skyrim. An exception though for Fallout 4 Far harbor DLC).
But we still have good non story-driven AAA games.
I certainly hope the irony of this exchange isn't lost on the both of you, the mass produced Criterion products being seen as the saviors against the wave of mass produced products.
Which doesn't make any difference in the context of their discussion, it's still mass produced and sold in supermarkets and thus by definition not obscure/unique/for initiated only.
If that was the implication then it's an even worse take, as it's textbook survivorship bias. There are plenty of terrible older movie, they didn't make it to criterion collection.
I, like many people, lamented about the media dumbing us down with lazy, brainless content. What blew my mind was when I read someone online respond to this assertion: “you have it backwards, the media is delivering what the market demands”.
As with most things it’s likely a bit of both. But deep down I suspect it’s mostly the market demanding trash.
I think this still has it backwards. People, who are not experts in the content they consume, can't be relied upon to distinguish good from trash. Not because they don't experience the difference, but because they don't know the indicators.
I couldn't tell you whether my surgeon was any good or not leading up to an operation, but if they were bad, I'd sure be able to tell 2 weeks later.
I think it is ultimately up to professionals to have some pride in their work. I think they'll also need to have a certain amount of protection from hacks willing to undercut them.
It's particularly apparent if you look at the Kindle Top 100 - https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Kindle-Store/zgbs/digita.... I'm most familiar with the romances, so that's what I'll be discussing. There's a lot more to the genre than these examples, but that's not what sells.
• Fourth Wing and Iron Flame are poorly written fantasy romances that blew up on TikTok.
• Three books with bare chested men on the covers. These indicate that there's lots of sex scenes; no one reads them for plot.
• Icebreaker is a poorly written hockey romance. The author is ignorant about college, hockey, and the US to say the least.
• Credence is a contemporary romance that's best known for sex scenes and toxic relationships.
• A Court of Thorns and Roses and A Court of Mist and Fury. Both of these are mediocre fantasy romances by Sarah J. Maas; she's the Dan Brown of romance.
