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- What's up, friends?
Michael here to reminisce about a simpler time.
The year was 2013.
My cholesterol was simply high for my age.
I still necessitated haircuts,
and there was a new serialized political thriller
starring an Academy Award-winning actor
whom we had no reason to suspect was a sex offender.
"House of Cards" hit Netflix to instant acclaim
and a million network executives
had simultaneous panic attacks
because the television landscape had
apparently changed forever.
Flash forward a decade,
and it's fair to conclude
the revolution will not be Netflix and chilled
or Netflixed and chilled.
Is that it?
I don't know. That means to have sex, right?
That's because, these days,
streaming services are going through it.
In June, Netflix fired 300 employees
as the company lost 70% of its value.
Then Warner Brothers announced the HBO Max
and Discovery+ merger,
sending the internet into a collective freak out.
In the weeks since,
HBO has, among other things,
shelved the already filmed $90 million feature film
"Batgirl," weathered rumors of looming layoffs,
and purged its archives of many beloved TV shows.
Hard to believe that just a few years ago
media forecasters confidently predicted
that streaming would kill television as we knew it.
But with companies now firing employees,
consolidating their platforms,
and canceling much anticipated releases,
we've gotta ask, is streaming on the way out?
Or has it turned the media landscape
into a content machine that's too big to fail?
Let's find out in this "Wisecrack Edition,
Did Streaming Content Kill Culture?"
Before we can reflect on content, culture and streaming,
it's worth looking to the entertainment industry's past.
As reporter Brooks Barnes notes,
Hollywood's no stranger to titanic moments
of instant change, writing,
"Once a generation, Hollywood experiences a seismic shift."
In these moments, all accepted facts
about people's entertainment consumption are called
into question, and premature eulogies are written
for once-beloved forms of mass media.
For example, when it began broadcasting
in the early 1950s, TV started cannibalizing content
from the then reigning mass entertainment medium, radio.
Popular shows like the Western drama "Gunsmoke"
and the family sitcom "Father Knows Best" were adapted
for the screen.
While some of these shows kept a foot in radio,
television would eventually render narrative radio
essentially obsolete,
though if you've ever listened to a podcast,
you know audio-only entertainment has reemerged as a force
and you probably also know discount codes
for mattresses, online gambling and fancy toothbrushes,
but network television would barely get its moment
in the sun before mainstream media started predicting
its own swan song.
Sick of your stodgy NBC, ABC and CBS offerings?
Well, circa August 1st, 1981, you were in for a real trip.
♪ Video killed the radio star ♪
- [Michael] MTV is remembered for popularizing the art form
of music videos, but importantly,
it also helped drive consumers
to cable television subscriptions.
- I want my MTV!
- By 1989, an estimated 60% of U.S. households had cable.
Once seen as the minor leagues of television
where reruns and old movies reigned supreme,
cable suddenly became a real threat
to network television's dominance.
And by the late '90s, it was cutting into its profits.
What's more, reality TV's meteoric rise
in the form of "American Idol" and "Survivor,"
coupled with the 2008 writer strike,
suggested that network television was on the outs,
and "Mad Men's" Emmy win marked the first time
a basic cable television show took home
the prestigious award,
but cable couldn't stay on top forever,
and more change predictably came.
Although many have called the early 2010s
the golden age of cable, by 2013,
"The Economist" was already asking,
is Netflix killing cable television?
Rising to prominence as a DVD mailer service
that attempted to replace the truly irreplaceable,
Netflix quickly pivoted into video streaming
and original content.
As "Variety" announced in 2020,
cable TV's gravy train went off the rails
when streaming arrived.
Hollywood became terrified
about Netflix's rising cultural dominance
and serious film ambassador, Steven Spielberg,
campaigned against even considering Netflix films
for top Academy Awards honors.
- Once you commit to a television format,
you're a TV movie.
You certainly, if it's a good show, deserve an Emmy,
but not on Oscar.
- Given how TV reporters, economists,
and even the creator
of "E.T." himself has propped Netflix up
to be a big cultural boogieman,
you'd think the company would be too big to fail,
but with the recent loss of subscribers,
the decrease in market value and the string of layoffs,
it's tempting to buy
into the media's preemptive obituary for streaming,
arguably though, Netflix
and other streaming platforms have hit a wall
of their own making.
And as some of argued,
they simply have no more room for growth.
As journalist Louis Chilton writes,
"Financially, streaming has always been coasting by
on vibes alone.
You can't build an entire business
around exponential subscriber growth.
Eventually, you're simply going to run out
of new customers."
Rather than eking out hundreds of millions
of dollars in theater tickets,
the streaming model means releasing content
enticing enough to keep current subscribers paying
for the privilege of watching it,
and ideally, convincing new clients to sign on too,
even as the pool of potential recruits keeps dwindling.
And how do you convince people to keep mailing
in 999 pennies a month?
By the logic of streaming services,
you start producing stuff to watch,
lots of stuff to watch.
Netflix started growing its empire
with a budget in the humble hundreds of millions
that quickly ballooned into $17 billion by 2021.
I wonder what $17 billion would do
to the increasing amount of student loan debt, huh?
Joseph Biden?
And the mass proliferation
of stuff to watch rendered streaming's rise inextricable
from the overall emergence of the content industry.
The content industry basically includes any company
that produces digital content,
i.e. stuff that you stare at on your phone
when you could be, I don't know,
like connecting with humans or something.
While rumblings about the rise
of the industry started in the '90s,
It wasn't until the emergence of search engines,
streaming platforms, and faster internet speed
that it really exploded.
As scholar Kate Eichhorn writes,
"Content sometimes conveys information,
tells a story or entertains,
but it doesn't need to do any
of these things to circulate effectively."
Viewed in this way,
the primary purpose for content's existence is,
according to economist Bharat Anand, "Circulation."
And that's what distinguishes content
from previous forms of entertainment.
Eichhorn notes that the material
and aesthetic aspects of the content lose significance.
She writes, "In the world of content,
genre, medium and form become secondary concerns.
And in some instances, seem to disappear entirely."
This is epitomized by the streaming ecosystem.
As Annika Brawl Martins writes, "The cultural practice
of consuming video on Netflix doesn't necessarily translate
into experiencing it as television, but rather as content."
We can see some of this
in the way that Netflix has eroded conventional differences
between film and television,
especially with the rise of binge watching.
As scholar Anne Friedberg argues,
"The differences between the media of movies,
television and computers are rapidly diminishing."
Form becomes increasingly secondary
to content's ability to attract the most eyeballs.
And of course, then to use those eyeballs
to collect delicious data.
In this way, a piece of content's success can be judged,
not by say, it's message,
if there is indeed a message,
it's defined explicitly by how widely it spreads.
Consumption is the entire point,
not the happy side effect.
It's kind of like a Big Mac, right?
The point isn't that it's a high quality burger,
but that it's a burger that's consumed around the world 24/7
because of this, Eichhorn argues
that content is the "Ultimate expression of neoliberalism
and that it represents a shift away
from understanding cultural production
in relation to aesthetic and material categories
and towards understanding cultural production solely
through a market-focused lens."
That is to say, in the new content landscape,
pieces of culture only matter insofar
as they bring in profit.
If beauty or meaning is the mark of quality art
and enjoyment is the mark of quality entertainment,
bankability is the mark of quality content.
This state of affairs feels eerily
in line with the mid-20th century assessment
of mass entertainment made by scholar Theodore Adorno.
In recent decades,
he's been fairly criticized for being a bit
of a curmudgeon for his critique of the mass culture
and especially of classic Hollywood films and jazz music.
To be clear, both of those things rip,
but when it comes to modern streaming series
like "FBoy Island,"
we think his argument bears consideration.
Along with philosopher Max Horkheimer,
Adorno conceived of mid-century entertainment,
what they called the culture industry,
as a sort of assembly line
where art and entertainment are reduced
to mere products created solely to produce profit.
As they write "The cultural entities typical
of the culture industry are no longer also commodities.
They are commodities through and through."
In this way,
they thought art started being valued
for its ability to sell rather than its ability
to impart a message, elicit emotions,
or express an aesthetic vision.
An essential part of this assembly line logic is
that the entertainment industry recycles
the same storytelling conventions ad nauseam
until the distinctions between individual works
of art become entirely meaningless.
And again, while we don't think this applies
to say, the improvisational jazz of John Coltrane,
we do think it's a fitting encapsulation
of the streaming industrial complex
where there are seemingly infinite reality shows
about rich people who love fashion and live for drama
or cute couples who help people build their dream homes.
With an estimated 1,600 shows
and several hundred movies made and distributed
on various stringing platforms each year,
there's never been more content to consume.
And if you're listening, streaming networks,
why not make it 1,601 and give us a shot?
But the assembly line logic
of it all becomes glaringly apparent
when you consider how a platform
like Netflix generates its ideas.
- Netflix, you're green lit.
Who am I speaking with?
- Specifically, the platform relies heavily
on its $1 billion artificial intelligence program
to guide its content selection.
If I was running things,
after this clip, then it would cut
to the Dr. Evil from "Austin Powers" saying, "$1 billion,"
or doesn't say "1 million?"
See, I (beep) it up. Nevermind.
For example, "House of Cards,"
a remake of a BBC program,
was algorithmically generated
to attract the Venn diagram intersection
of Kevin Spacey fans who liked David Fincher
and enjoyed British political thrillers.
Here, we see how a work
of entertainment is reduced to the sum of its parts
rather than, say, it's artistic integrity.
It's like when KFC had the Double Down Sandwich
where the bread was fried chicken
and where the chicken would normally go
was bacon and cheese.
And literally just talking about it,
I feel my LDL just spiking.
We talk about this in our video
about why all Netflix films look the same
but it bears repeating.
The result of this AI content selection has led
to the proliferation of a sort of mutant film created
to tick as many box office happy criteria as possible.
This is also why we get a lot
of content based on existing intellectual property,
whether it's the million Marvel shows on Disney+,
or "Bridgerton," which is based on a series
of romance novels,
or how about the show based on a "New York Magazine" article
about Anna Delvey, or "The Staircase,"
which is based on a documentary series,
which is based on a real life true crime.
In case you missed that one,
it's a narrative show based on a documentary series
about a real life murder that an owl did to a lady.
I am a proud member of Owl Theory Nation.
Shout it out in the comments if you are too.
The assembly line logic
of streaming also explains the rise in reality TV shows
which are significantly less expensive to produce
than conventional narrative content
while also allowing for other money making avenues
like seamless product placement.
Take HBO, famously the capital H
Home of prestige television.
Its merger with Discovery and with it acquisition of reams
of reality television is indicative
of just how much streaming has changed
from its days of high quality programming
to its increased reliance on low budget reality shows
that are conducive to endless spinoffs,
like "FBoy Gaza Strip,"
"FBoy Emergency Room," "FBoy Alaskan Mortuary,"
"FBoy Cruise Ship Stranded at Sea With a Disease on It,"
or "FBoy Pediatrician's Office."
No wonder that streaming has coincided
with the slow devaluation of mass culture
and the people who make it.
Streaming services have used their classification
as new media to deny entertainment workers fair pay,
especially those doing thankless jobs
on film and TV sets.
Residuals, once a vital source of income
for entertainment workers, have been slashed.
Meaning, workers ranging from production designers
to lead actors are often paid only once for their work
or compensated significantly less overall
because they can't rely on reruns, DVD sales, et cetera.
Clearly, the streaming industry's assembly line
of content encapsulates the ethos of the content industry,
and with it, the acceleration
of Adorno and Horkheimer's logic
about the culture industry's cheapening of art.
Fittingly then, streaming's dominance also seems
to be shifting the way we view content,
both literally and conceptually.
While television fans were formerly
at the mercy of weekly air times to catch "Seinfeld,"
- A car just bashed into a parked car
and sped off right on my block.
- You gotta follow that car.
- [Jerry] What? (audience laughing)
- Streaming services have enabled the consumption
of an entire show all at once.
As Netflix's CEO put it, "We're competing with sleep."
The very format of the platforms is conducive to this.
Netflix's auto play function facilitates endless watching,
essentially choosing for the viewer
to continue the next leg of their viewing binge.
It's no wonder then that much
of our entertainment consumption is done absentmindedly
with the exception of video games,
which remain arguably the most active form
of cultural consumption,
so gamers, keep on fighting
against the dying of the light.
As writer Jake Pitre argues,
"In a binge culture,
the banal pleasures of zoning out coexist with
and play an increasingly strategic role
in maintaining the intensive pleasures
of switched-on viewing."
The rising phenomenon
of second screens compounds the zoning out effect,
with viewers dividing their attention
between multiple stimuli.
Also, if you have a boring job
and you need multiple stimuli,
on Thursdays at 11:00 AM Pacific,
check out our stream "Wisecrack Live."
You can have it on with headphones
and you like act like you're working
but really we're just hanging out, watching videos.
I'll probably get unhinged for a little bit.
It'll be fun. Check it out.
Arguably, this is why much
of the streaming services' low impact content works so well.
It doesn't demand rigorous attention
but it does demand our time,
lots and lots of our time.
I guess it takes time to spot all of the Fboys
on the island.
It's like, where's Waldo?
Except Waldo (beep).
And that's the real reason
streaming services aren't going anywhere,
because they have a loyal army of workers supporting them.
Namely, you.
See, according to Adorno and Horkheimer,
the assembly line nature of cultural production
under late capitalism
and the repetition of entertainment's narratives
and forms essentially turns consuming entertainment
into mechanized work.
They write, "Amusement under late capitalism
is the prolongation of work.
It is sought after as an escape
from the mechanized work process
and to recruit strength
in order to be able to cope with it again.
But at the same time, a mechanization has such power
over a man's leisure and happiness.
And so, it profoundly determines the manufacturer
of amusement goods that his experiences are inevitably
after-images of the work process itself.
What happens at work in the factory
or in the office can only be escaped
by approximation to it in one's leisure time."
In this way, while we may see a long night
of streaming as an escape from the humdrum repetition
of our day jobs, consuming it becomes something
of a part-time job in and of itself.
But hey, what else would we do at that time? Right?
We're gonna like hang out and reflect on our lives
and maybe reflect on our lives
in relation to society and our place in society.
Maybe we'd gather with our friends and neighbors,
reflect collectively, organize to change a society
that's grinding us all into dust.
(Michael laughs) (wind whipping)
Yeah, that'd be, that'd be random.
Importantly, Adorno and Horkheimer also argue
that the culture industry has significant ramifications
on our political agency.
Because it's produced and consumed
under the logic of profit minded neoliberalism,
products of the culture industry
typically uphold dominant social
and political values.
As scholar Kumars Salehi writes for Verso,
"Chief among Adorno's concerns is that,
in the culture industry,
what gets left out is an understanding
not only of the real mechanisms of power in society
but also the possibility
that those mechanisms could be changed.
Submission in the realm of culture prepares us
to be submissive in the realm of politics."
This submission is encapsulated
by the passivity we experience when binge watching,
as we're directed to continue consuming.
And arguably, when we consume content consistent
with dominant political realities,
we're being primed to quietly accept them,
or the opposite, i.e. we're watching a show
with relatively smart social or political values
but this only furthers our desires to sit
in place and watch all 10 episodes.
So either way, we aren't going outside.
While art has long been seen by artists and philosophers
as a vital means of questioning dominant values
or offering alternatives, content tends to conform to them.
That's true whether it's glamorizing extreme wealth,
emphasizing the social importance of sex appeal,
or reminding us that what really matters is home ownership
and the nuclear family.
In this way, because of the logic behind its production,
it's very difficult for content to be truly subversive.
Unless it's us. We can, we figured it out.
Upon reflection, it's surprising
that streaming ever attempted
to be anything other than an assembly line
of capital C Content to facilitate endless consumption.
The early years, dominated by prestige shows
and indie films, simply don't fit the logic
of the way we consume content.
The kinds of reality shows and docu-series
and carbon copy rom-coms
that have proliferated in recent years
and to significant dismay are far more fitting
to the zoned out binging
that the medium of streaming encourages.
So, streaming isn't dead,
but it's arguably a zombified version of itself,
stuck in a race to the bottom
where no amount of content is ever enough
and cheap utterly watchable entertainment
that forgoes provocation is king.
But what do you guys think?
Has content destroyed culture as we know it?
And are streaming platforms the main culprits?
Let us know what you think in the comments.
Thank you so much to our patrons
for all your support, and do check out our Patreon page
if you haven't in a while.
Be sure to like this video
if you thought it was good content,
and thanks as always for hanging out and watching.
We'll catch you later.
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