Drugs feel great until we hit rock bottom and realize we are sick. And then we gotta quit. Hollywood has always had maverick storytellers who shake up the business. Right now we are watching folks like Mr. Beast single-handedly destroy the algorithms by forcing the “social media” creators to rip off his style and mash it up with reality tv flavors to create an amped-up amalgamation of emotions turned to 11. I remember back in my reality tv days (before I quit that part of the business) and how we would manipulate everyone and everything. Nothing was real. It’s still the same with social media content creators but now with more “authentic production value. People wanna be famous. Why? Because they want to matter. They want their lives to have some sort of meaning. Living in Hollywood and hanging with the 20-something Tik Tok kids I’ve asked them why do you want to be famous…and the answer is because I get to be famous. I recently read Stephen King’s opening to his Dark Tower series that he wrote back in 2003 as a retrospective on the series. He waxed poetic about being a 19-year old writer and his big ambitions to write the longest novel. Why? Just because he thought it was good idea at the time. Similar scenario but King had a story to tell that was itching his brain. Maybe along the way the children will find their way…or maybe they will be eaten by their own, drowning in a cesspool of synthetic data. The funny thing is that with all the data and metrics, we miss the point. It was never about being famous. It was never about being rich. It was about having meaning, crossing a threshold from childhood into adulthood. It’s one that has been lost as we have been given way too much data and no training on how to use the sword to hack our way through the useless noise.
All this sounds good but today’s kids like my 25 year nephew will grow up. The 20 somethings will get a wake up. And that will affect what they watch. My nephew now knows the engagement is all manufactured. Is it real fans, click farms, bots or AI?
Add he’s had that mid 20’s shock to his life. Broke up with his girl, lost the good job. Had to move in back with his folks. Now watching some dude fake his lifestyle or whatever he’s doing to “connect” doesn’t hit like it use to.
It’s easy to be revolutionary when you don’t have any responsibilities besides wash your ass. The sudden reversal -he left Brooklyn at 19 to move in with his now ex, cut to 25 and back in Brooklyn they are now split it shifted his perspective.
Also wasn’t self publishing books gonna be a game changer? There was a book store in Soho that had a print press. They shut down. Store still has other sites in NYC sans the print machine.
I bought those books. And the authors were more or less arrogant. Their entire selling point was I should buy it because they aren’t relying on Simon and Shuster, I’m like how about rely on basic writing skills. Punctuation, correct spelling, proper syntax and grammar was all out of the question. Scene construction and plot sequences were a mess.
Only one of those authors for high enough to have her book adapted. It was dipped in theaters late august and few years ago. The rest of those self publishing authors went the way of the blackberry curve.
I asked my nephew about Kai Cenant, he knows who he is but he doesn’t revolve any time around him if he remembers to watch his channel that day fine. I asked who do you follow from high school, he said no one. I suspect as this sector grows it will do so like how the state lottery works. Different players same game. But here it will be interchangeable fans and creators. And don’t get me started on that WSJ article in which a majority of the creators make as much as most Hollywood writers and have 0 of the protections or benefits. Hence burn out is 18 months.
I guess if we look at the argument purely in a technological sense, I'm not sure what Hollywood has to offer. Similar to how radio has nothing to offer that is different from podcasts, I'm not sure what makes Hollywood so great. Maybe they could have a channel on one of the social medias but today I don't see any significant differentiator in terms of tech that Hollywood has to offer.
They can create streaming services and try to hoard IP but eventually new creators will create new IP's that will eat their lunch. The way I see it, Hollywood is going to die.
A little hard to say definitively. But if you look at Activate data, professional video has been pretty stagnant and social is growing, so that implies it is adding.
Thank you. I wonder then what is losing out? Newspapers? Hanging out at the mall? It used to be that TV viewing came in second after sleep, and ahead of work.
Drugs feel great until we hit rock bottom and realize we are sick. And then we gotta quit. Hollywood has always had maverick storytellers who shake up the business. Right now we are watching folks like Mr. Beast single-handedly destroy the algorithms by forcing the “social media” creators to rip off his style and mash it up with reality tv flavors to create an amped-up amalgamation of emotions turned to 11. I remember back in my reality tv days (before I quit that part of the business) and how we would manipulate everyone and everything. Nothing was real. It’s still the same with social media content creators but now with more “authentic production value. People wanna be famous. Why? Because they want to matter. They want their lives to have some sort of meaning. Living in Hollywood and hanging with the 20-something Tik Tok kids I’ve asked them why do you want to be famous…and the answer is because I get to be famous. I recently read Stephen King’s opening to his Dark Tower series that he wrote back in 2003 as a retrospective on the series. He waxed poetic about being a 19-year old writer and his big ambitions to write the longest novel. Why? Just because he thought it was good idea at the time. Similar scenario but King had a story to tell that was itching his brain. Maybe along the way the children will find their way…or maybe they will be eaten by their own, drowning in a cesspool of synthetic data. The funny thing is that with all the data and metrics, we miss the point. It was never about being famous. It was never about being rich. It was about having meaning, crossing a threshold from childhood into adulthood. It’s one that has been lost as we have been given way too much data and no training on how to use the sword to hack our way through the useless noise.
All this sounds good but today’s kids like my 25 year nephew will grow up. The 20 somethings will get a wake up. And that will affect what they watch. My nephew now knows the engagement is all manufactured. Is it real fans, click farms, bots or AI?
Add he’s had that mid 20’s shock to his life. Broke up with his girl, lost the good job. Had to move in back with his folks. Now watching some dude fake his lifestyle or whatever he’s doing to “connect” doesn’t hit like it use to.
It’s easy to be revolutionary when you don’t have any responsibilities besides wash your ass. The sudden reversal -he left Brooklyn at 19 to move in with his now ex, cut to 25 and back in Brooklyn they are now split it shifted his perspective.
Also wasn’t self publishing books gonna be a game changer? There was a book store in Soho that had a print press. They shut down. Store still has other sites in NYC sans the print machine.
I bought those books. And the authors were more or less arrogant. Their entire selling point was I should buy it because they aren’t relying on Simon and Shuster, I’m like how about rely on basic writing skills. Punctuation, correct spelling, proper syntax and grammar was all out of the question. Scene construction and plot sequences were a mess.
Only one of those authors for high enough to have her book adapted. It was dipped in theaters late august and few years ago. The rest of those self publishing authors went the way of the blackberry curve.
I asked my nephew about Kai Cenant, he knows who he is but he doesn’t revolve any time around him if he remembers to watch his channel that day fine. I asked who do you follow from high school, he said no one. I suspect as this sector grows it will do so like how the state lottery works. Different players same game. But here it will be interchangeable fans and creators. And don’t get me started on that WSJ article in which a majority of the creators make as much as most Hollywood writers and have 0 of the protections or benefits. Hence burn out is 18 months.
I guess if we look at the argument purely in a technological sense, I'm not sure what Hollywood has to offer. Similar to how radio has nothing to offer that is different from podcasts, I'm not sure what makes Hollywood so great. Maybe they could have a channel on one of the social medias but today I don't see any significant differentiator in terms of tech that Hollywood has to offer.
They can create streaming services and try to hoard IP but eventually new creators will create new IP's that will eat their lunch. The way I see it, Hollywood is going to die.
A question not a comment: what’s happening to total video hours? Is social video adding or subtracting?
A little hard to say definitively. But if you look at Activate data, professional video has been pretty stagnant and social is growing, so that implies it is adding.
Thank you. I wonder then what is losing out? Newspapers? Hanging out at the mall? It used to be that TV viewing came in second after sleep, and ahead of work.