The Atlantic: Nobody Knows What’s Happening Online Anymore. Why you’ve probably never heard of the most popular Netflix show in the world.::undefined
The Atlantic: Nobody Knows What’s Happening Online Anymore. Why you’ve probably never heard of the most popular Netflix show in the world.::undefined
An insightful thought from a TV critic I read years ago just as streaming was taking off :
There’s no such thing as the best TV show anymore, because there’s so much that’s generally good enough to be a candidate that no one person has watched it all and spent the time to assess it properly.
More broadly, this had happened to western culture with the internet. Previously, with only three tv channels and two major papers, we were all literally on the same page.
I’d go further and say there’s a vertical dimension too in terms of complexity. Society and its various aspects such as technology are now complex enough in total they I don’t think anyone can ever say they understand what’s going on.
One of the worst catalysts of this is when channels started dropping entire seasons of shows at once online to appease le epic binge watching culture. But when everyone watches something new like that at once, there’s no time to actually appreciate anything or discuss the story or build anticipation, it just gets burned through and forgotten within 2 weeks.
It does still allow for catch-up at the end of the run though. I prefer to binge watch, but now I wait a few months for it all to be released and then watch it. Which still doesn’t allow for week to week discussion, but fits my watching patterns better.
Yea for sure.
I think that whole thing of dropping whole seasons and how it’s kinda faded somewhat is an interesting case study of this particular internet culture moment.
Where we think we want more and faster but have lost sight that that’s just a dumb dopamine mentality left unbalanced and unmitigated and that we actually prefer more traditional forms of various things.
The only reason they’ve gone back to slow drip releases is to milk your engagement and subscription.
I do, I learned everything on Facebook. AMA
There IS a best TV show and it’s Six Feet Under and it’s perfect and the ending makes me cri every time and I will FIGHT ANYONE WHO DISAGREES
But srsly it’s a 10/10