General Discussion

I can download tens of thousands of shows and movies right onto my living room TV, for the monthly cost of going to maybe a couple of theatrical movies.

I've got "watchlists" of hundreds of films. When will I find time to watch them?

It's like being locked overnight in a Baskins-Robbins. How many flavors can you try in a night? How much can you eat before you get sick?

I think entertainment consumers are being balkanized by so many choices. Each person can find scads of what they personally like. Why try something new and exotic when there is an endless supply of your favorite comfort foods already in your pantry?

Now for my oldtimer rant. The town I grew up in could get one TV station (CBS) and had one movie theater. You watched what was available, and what was available to everyone was the same thing. You watched a lot of diverse shows, because that was what was showing. Turn on the TV, you may get romance, comedy, action, soap opera, sports. You had no choice. Go to the movies, you see the one movie per week that came around. Everyone you talked to talked about the same show everyone saw on TV last night, the same movie everyone went to last weekend.

Now, everyone is traveling down their own personal entertainment tunnel. Of course, this pertains to news as well. Everyone can find their own news sources that cater to their personal interests and feeds their pre-existing bias.

Think of the shared cultures of the decades. The fashion, the music, the movies, the politics of the 60s. The 70s, the 80s, the 90s. And then what? What is the dominant culture of the Aughties? The Teens, the Twenties? That shared culture is hard to identify. It seems to be a chaotic hodge-podge of the past decades' cultures.

There isn't one. Everyone has their own limited entertainment and news bubble they occupy, stuffed with their own preferences and favorites. A tv show with a few million viewers is a ratings winner. Our shared culture is splintering.

Will this be a good thing or a bad thing? Hard to say. Of course, many people were left out of our "shared culture" all along. Now I reckon nearly everyone can find a comfort space.