newthrowaway20@lemmy.world 23 hours ago
I miss the days of people having their own bespoke collection of their favorite movies and shows. Everything is homogenized now. At least when I pirate, I’m still building my own personal media library. And I never have to worry about the show I like being removed later.
But I’m not gonna lie. The quality drop off in content caused by streaming services I think is a bigger issue
Netflix activity tries to make content that’s not actually good enough to watch without browsing a phone. Second screen content, they call it. And I guarantee someone in a finance role realized they could make way more by doing just enough to keep people, rather than try to actively create amazing content, because it’s soo much cheaper to not pay for good writers, or good set designers or actors when you could just find someone who’s good enough. I think it’s because the money people spend is recurring, linked to the service as a whole, and not linked to the individual work… users have to vote by watching now, and some of the best stuff I’ve ever seen is also some of the least watched.
I miss the days of people having their own bespoke collection of their favorite movies and shows
I don’t miss the shelves to house all of it tho. Now, I have quite a collection of audio from my days of internet radio, that I ripped to flac a long time ago All of it sets on my shelf as a NAS.
turkalino@sh.itjust.works 20 hours ago
I’m interested to know what you mean by this, because if anything, I’ve heard the older generations reminisce about ye olde monoculture when there was only a handful of good shows on a handful of television channels, and everyone would tune in weekly to watch and then talk about the next day around the water cooler. I feel like streaming has led to things being more fragmented, both because you need to be subscribed to the one service that carries the show and because there’s so many more shows being made.
ericatty@infosec.pub 13 hours ago
I’m old enough to remember when this was a thing. TV didn’t have a remote, 3 main channels. That era.
The thing that hasn’t changed is people wanting to talk about their favorite media. What has is the arena. I don’t know irl people watching what I watch. So I end up talking with other fans on Discord or watching youtubers geek out like I am.
The trick is not falling for parasocial relationships with these people gathered around the virtual water cooler.
aesthelete@lemmy.world 17 hours ago
I’m not who you were originally replying to, but I think two seemingly contradictory things can be true at once.
Yes, there is definitely more content nowadays, and less people watching the same things at the same time because of all of the variety of services and content and platforms, etc.
But that content tends to still be homogenous. The settings and costumes of the shows might be different, but most content cannot pass, for instance, the bechdel test.
For all of the emphasis on “eradicating woke” in the last few years, there really isn’t a whole lot of actual diversity in most media. I could probably only name a single show that expresses, for instance, communist ideas, and I think it was cancelled in recent years alongside scores of lgbtq characters in shows.
Plotlines are typical, production values are stepped up but there’s a large amount of, for instance, ideological consistency among all media produced nowadays.
If you’re looking for a variety of typical genre shows, yes, you’re spoiled for choice. But when you’re looking for something that breaks the mold even slightly there are really only a handful of things from which to choose.
And that’s leaving out how much derivative media exists. Vince Gilligan in recent interviews even lamented how he was one of only a few people that could get a new show with a new concept even started in the industry. Many shows are set in “universes” that are decades old. A lot of “new” movies are reboots or sequels of old movies.
There’s a thread of choiceless variety that used to apply mainly to things like groceries that has now infected much of media as well. Whole political movements now push to eradicate the little diversity (ideological and character identity based) that exists.
All of this leaves out what happened to music btw, which is becoming so algorithm-driven that it’s hard for those using streaming services to even tell if it was produced by a person.
I’ll just leave this here as well:
www.nplusonemag.com/…/why-is-everything-so-ugly/
richieadler@lemmy.myserv.one 4 hours ago
Let’s also remark: USian public. Outside the States the reliance in stereotypes and too-pretty or too-token-minority is so obvious that it detracts from enjoyment.
Argentinian here. Lately I mostly consume British TV. It’s immeasurably better. People act and look as real people.
That’s also why I find USian remakes disgusting. They lose all distinctiveness. A blatant case was the police drama Broadchurch (UK original) vs Gracepoint (US remake). The only common cast member was David Tennant. The UK characters feel as real people. The US characters were obviously actors. Olivia Coleman was believable as a police officer in a small fishing town. Anna Gunn… wasn’t.
irmadlad@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
We old folks most often reminisce through very dark, rose colored glasses which often leave out important negative features of days past.