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"So, whatcha binging these days?"
"What?"
"Everyone's bingeing these days. That's how we consume content."
What is today's viewer experience doing to our heads?
Diving down TikTok rabbit holes, binge-watching hours of Youtube
and Netflix, streaming big-budget movies on small phone screens,
and passively consuming music on an algorithmic "mood" playlist.
Being a "viewer" today is all- encompassing yet fragmented, immersive
and interactive yet at other times passive and perhaps, overwhelming.
"If you're playing the movie on a telephone,
you will never in a trillion years experience the film."
And it's true that treasured art forms like classic cinema,
movie theaters and the artist-driven musical album
need guardians and champions. On the other hand, alarmist,
panicked headlines about how "art" (and our brains) are being
irrevocably damaged don't tell the whole story--
because there are also many hopeful developments and
inclusive opportunities in this whole evolution.
Here's our take on how exactly the viewer experience is morphing--
and the potential in what it's turning us viewers into.
So, first things first: have human attention spans
really become shorter than that of a goldfish?
In 2015, a study from Microsoft went viral with the takeaway that
the human attention span had shortened to less than 10 seconds.
"Researchers say humans are now averaging about eight seconds of
uninterrupted focus while goldfish are believed to have at least
nine seconds of concentration."
It didn't take long for people to blame this on social media,
digestible "bite-sized" content forms, and the fact that we're reading
the internet instead of books.
"All I gotta do is put my mind to this shit."
"Goddamn!"
But when the BBC's Simon Maybin followed up on that original study,
the data sources couldn't be verified. Dr. Gemma Briggs tells the BBC that
"average attention span" is kind of meaningless because
how much attention we give depends on what we task demands.
A better way to frame this conversation is that our attention
is (not shortening) but changing-- because we're putting it toward
different entertainment- related "tasks".
Yes, we still watch or read for stretches of hours and hours--
but this might take the form of TikTok and Youtube Rabbit holes,
opening up Wikipedia tab after tab, or bingeing episodes in a show.
Thus the content "stream" is separated into smaller chunks,
so it's a long-form yet segmented or episodic experience.
After each content "bite" ends, you have the option to "engage"
and click which of the following options you're automatically served up.
But if you don't click (sometimes within few brief seconds--
we're looking at you, Netflix!) you're shuffled along to the next
Netflix autoplay and Spotify playlists selection,
floating down a stream while doing very little to select
(or even be aware of who made this art or what it's called).
Thus the viewer today is a contradictory mix of
both passive and active.
Let's look at the active part first. Audiences are flocking to
interactivity in content experiences to make them participants.
Obviously you have the huge popularity of gaming
(testifying to how much people want long-form, interactive storytelling),
plus the gameificiation of TV--
"How about you decide what you want for your breakfast?"
--as Black Mirror's Bandersnatch choose-your-own-adventure episode has
been replicated by You Vs. Wild, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,
and Boss Baby.
Twitch is doubly interactive as we can talk to streamers
while we vicariously partake in their interactive gaming.
If there's one word to sum up what many viewers want out of
all these immersive, interactive personality-driven experiences,
it's closeness.
"Authenticity" may be something of an overused buzzword today,
but that feeling of unpolished, authentic intimacy is clearly
a huge driver toward platforms like Youtube and TikTok,
where glossy production value isn't necessarily a plus and
may even be off-putting. In a world where so much
feels fake or commercialised, the DIY aesthetic of creators
on these platforms can make it feel like you're getting
an actual window into their lives and thoughts.
"I want to try and start working out three or four times a week.
I said this before, I mean it! I mean it this time, guys!"
This closeness is also being achieved between viewers,
listeners, or gamers-- to the point that we're
forming communities and tribes around the stuff we love.
"I'm Susanna McCauley, and if you haven't noticed,
I care a lot about the viewer experience.
We at The Take watch a lot of films and TV shows to
make these video essays, probably the best part
of our job.
So it was serendipity that our video sponsor LG brought
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"So, whatcha bingeing these days?"
"What?"
"Everyone's binging these days. That's how we consume content."
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"This is, like, ridiculously thin."
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In 1969, media theorist Marshall McLuhan predicted
that a more interconnected world would lead to a "retribalizing" effect,
and in this description we see the roots of stan culture.
Artists foster these tribes by giving away more of themselves
to their fans and fans provide services to other fans that you
might expect the band to do, like organizing meet-ups
or translating content into other languages.
"Fan translators, who translate this content from Korean to
other languages for free on their own time."
"You get a sense that you're doing something for community."
Subscriber platforms like Patreon, or My Favorite Murder's Fan Cult,
allow fans a specific place where they can bond and even influence
the content they're uniting through.
"In the never ending struggle to make friends in a new city,
I've been able to bond with people over this podcast."
In this climate, the discussion about a work has become almost
as primary and important as the watching itself.
Social media has turned consuming culture into
communal, multi-media events. Scandal's cast and creator,
Shonda Rhimes, live-tweeting the show along with fans--
known as gladiators-- saved it from being
cancelled and grew the audience by over 50 percent.
"We really kind of created a new thing with Scandal.
It's made Scandal appointment viewing the idea of on Thursday
at nine 0'clock, everybody can get on Twitter and have
this communal experience."
(Even what we do at The Take is all about discussing and
thinking deeply about the culture all around us to get the most
out of movies, shows, and music!)
Getting memed is a huge part of a show or movie becoming a hit today--
so much so that memeification is built into marketing strategies,
and it's common for shows to be released with accompanying podcasts.
"Ok, so this week on Succession..."
And the launch of the social media app Clubhouse is built all around
this desire for a shared disccusion space.
"People come to Clubhouse to talk about it, to be
with other people in the moment."
No wonder the concept is already being copied
by Twitter and Facebook.
The downside to the discussion becoming everything is that
it can make what that art is truly expressing less important.
Everybody has a lot to say about the latest content "controversy"--
whether it's Thirteen Reasons Why's depiction of mental health,
Tiger King-inspired debates about who killed Carole Baskin's husband,
or Netflix staff's walkout over transphobic comments in
Dave Chapelle's Closer-- even if they haven't watched
the show or movie in question in its entirety.
It's a situation that can flatten and remove nuance from any conversation.
Moreover, there are fears that even fewer people are watching and keeping
older cultural classics alive.
Movie theaters seem like endangered species and 30% of millennials have
reportedly never seen a black-and-white movie.
It’s hard to blame them when they’re so little exposed --
there’s a glaring “Recency” emphasis on platforms like Netflix,
which don’t really put a lot into curating great classic movie offerings.
Beyond just the question of black and white or color,
cinema looks hugely different today than it did 50, 30,
or even 10 years ago.
Look at how today’s shots are full of shallow depths of field
(the way everything is out of focus here except her face)
and focus pulls (so one object or person is in focus,
and then another, not both at once).
Many of cinema’s beloved classics are full of deep focus.
Take any acclaimed 70s film, and see how much more we can
look at simultaneously in the frame
(as well as how different the colors of the film look).
According to psychologist James Cutting'sresearch,
average shot length has gotten shorter (from 12 seconds
in 1930, to 2.5 seconds now), and choreographed long
takes are increasingly rare. As digital cameras have replaced
film ones in most situations, this obviously makes the costs
of filming far more accessible. But in addition to the
aesthetic costs of what’s lost giving up celluloid,
this whole shallow-focus aesthetic can feel less real.
Take a look at The Sopranos (shot on 35 mm film,
clearly in a very understated, no-frills style)--
“This isn’t a movie, it’s a tv show.
But it’s shot on 35mm film, it uses the same
camera, equipment, techniques.”
--versus its 2021 prequel The Many Saints of Newark
(shot on the digital Arri Alexa camera).
The update maybe looks more aesthetically pleasing and
polished on the surface, yet that pleasingness is distancing,
somehow lessens the sense of “reality” that characterized
the original series.
By looking back at older cinema, we can try to translate some
of what was so great about them into what we watch--
and how we look today. 2021’s The Card Counter
and 2017’s First Reformed from Paul Schrader--
who wrote Taxi Driver
--demonstrate how (even when shooting on digital with
all of today’s tools) you can channel aesthetic
strategies from past classics to retain that cinematic mood
and the feeling of reality that derives from not
“overdoing” the aesthetic.
“I used that same freedom in First Reformed not to move the camera,
to be restrained, to be aesthetic. Nobody could pressure me to do
anything ‘commercial’ if I didn’t feel like it.”
And more broadly, it’s important to chronicle, protect, and learn
from classic cinema. But is it true that
streaming will spell the end for movie theatres
and cinema classics? Well, not quite.
Global box office and audiences were at a record high in 2019
before the pandemic, and while attendances did fall
in North America, they’d been going up prior to 2019
(and overall revenue was up from higher ticket prices),
so it’s not all doom and gloom. Moreover, in today’s fragmented
media age where it’s harder and harder to launch new mega-shows
or movies we all watch, “nostalgia” movies and shows
take on a special unifying power, and can get new lives as
younger fans discover them in new formats.
(Just look at all our videos on everything
from The Matrix, Mean Girls, Casablanca and American Psycho
to The Sopranos, Mad Men and Breaking Bad!).
TikTok, too, is helping people rediscover old music hits,
leading to surges in popularity for bands like Fleetwood Mac.
Now, returning to our active-passive dichotomy,
on the other end of the spectrum from all the interactive,
zealous engagement, passive, mindless consuming is more
seamless and tailored to us than ever before--
and we’re embracing it because we’re paralyzed by choice.
“With so many options to choose from,
people find it very difficult to choose at all.”
Choice paralysis makes third- party curation very appealing--
whether that’s a clothing or goods subscription service,
a viewing platform like Mubi that adds one quality film per day,
or the rise of playlisting culture like Spotify’s Discover Weekly algorithm.
Weirdly, overcome by too many options, we might just forego new stuff
altogether and burrow into the coziness of comfort food
TV we’ve seen a hundred times before. See: the huge price tags streamers
like Netflix have paid for old hits-- and the huge ones Warner Media
and NBCUniversal turned down to move Friends and the Office,
respectively, onto their own platforms. Apart from these long-
established behemoths, though, in many spaces today we have
weakening relationships with any specific artist or piece of art,
and our most direct relationship is with the platform that feeds us
this quote-unquote “content”.
"Look, I made you some content."
The success of any given film or show today is limited by
what platform it’s on. The New York Times reported,
the third season of American Crime Story: Impeachment saw poor viewership numbers,
despite big stars and a ton of media coverage,
due to not being available to stream to non-cable viewers
for 10 more months. This was also true
the first two seasons of the anthology series (in 2016 and 2018),
but the show's viewers have dropped steadily as
people move off cable. And as the streaming wars
are decided in the next few years (and even the all-important live
sports start to show up on streamers),
the idea that any single piece of “content”,
however delectable, is going to lure you off Netflix onto
yet another new platform (or god forbid, back to cable)
will become ever more unlikely. Platforms are also shaping
the nature and format of the art we watch.
“We’ll see people, uh, creating and releasing
music in novel ways, releasing instead of albums,
maybe they’ll release a song, uh, a week for 20 weeks.”
The artist-crafted “album” is giving way to
algorithm-formed “mood playlist”, and a 2019 study found out that
these playlists effectively replace musical genres for listeners
who now group acts together according to associated mood,
or activities like running or working out.
“Alright, sexy playlist, check. Seductive voice, double check.”
Artists are writing songs with the writing timing
and hooks to break them on TikTok.
"I wanted it to go... (PLAYS PIANO) because
um, I wanted there to be, like, a little, like, thing in it,
because I wanted people to make TikToks so they could
transition into it."
And user relationship can be with the platform
over the artist to such an extent that
there are “fake artists” on Spotify who’ve racked up
billions of streams, but seem to exist nowhere else.
Today’s streaming business model benefits the platform,
but disempowers artists--
"Many millions of streams can add up to only
a few thousand pounds.”
--or at least, it means a lot of people can
have a little success, but it’s much harder
to hit it big.
The ascendancy of the Binge Watch has turned TV
into a kind of therapy, whether you view that
as a “stress relief” tool or a full-blown addiction.
Have you ever wondered why you feel down once
you’ve finally come to the end of a series?
“Those 142 binge watchers reported higher levels of stress, anxiety,
and depression than the 266 people who didn’t identify
as being binge watchers.”
Clinical psychologist Dr. Renee Carr argues that
binge watching replicates an experience of addiction, saying:
“When binge-watching your favourite show,
your brain is continually producing dopamine, and
your body experiences a drug-like high.
You experience a pseudo- addiction to the show
because you develop cravings for dopamine.”
"I heard that-that you make these things that way. Addictive."
"All they do is tweak it like that on purpose!
They got dopamine targets!"
Even if the attention span isn’t actually shortening,
the widely-held belief that it is, is almost a self-fulfilling prophecy,
leading to media that desperately strives to “grab” us in
the first few seconds.
“A ding is to grab your attention, the colour red is to alert you,
a notification is to click.”
“Our devices are designed with our psychology in mind.”
And as we hit peak streaming wars, there are a lot of kinds of content
and competing platforms vying for the commodity of our attention.
Meanwhile as Google, Siri, or Alexa answer our questions
and schedule our calendars, and Amazon Prime delivers
our packages in as little as hours,
we’re living in an age where we feel we should
never have to wait for anything.
“I’m so bored! Bring the party over Draglexa.”
“Woo! Draglexa here!”
The irony of this is that instant gratification
doesn’t make us happy.
A University of Missouri study found that the peak of positive
emotions in a consumer experience comes just before a purchase is made.
We actually benefit from looking forward and,
yes, having to wait. That’s why there’s been
push back from creators against bingeing.
“Kids these days, everything is binge binge binge."
"Yeah."
"They’ll never know the pleasure of waiting for
just a crumb of what you want.”
After Netflix launched a tool to help viewers
speed up their shows, director Brad Bird described
it as “another cut to the already bleeding-out cinema experience.”
And some of today’s most buzzed-about shows--
like Apple TV’s Ted Lasso, HBO’s Succession and White Lotus,
Disney Plus’ WandaVision and The Mandalorian,
and Hulu’s Only Murders In The Building--
have all benefitted from the more old-fashioned
weekly release model, which combats post binge
malaise and probably creates a more memorable, positive
viewer experience in the long run. As WandaVision director
Mat Shakman said,
“There's something about the mystery...where people
can think about what they've watched and
come up with their own theories and it builds anticipation.”
Bingeing before bed can also make us so invested in a story,
we struggle to switch off. And it’s important to take
breaks from our screens, because screen fatigue is real--
and it’s making us exhausted.
“Screens are everywhere. We are controlled by screens.”
We’re watching so much content on TVs, tablets, phones,
and laptops that it’s actually wearing out our eyes.
“Digital eye strain can be caused by factors like
sitting too close to the screen, using the wrong settings
on your devices, and staring at your computer and smart phone
for long periods at a time."
Our sleep-cycles are so damaged that, ironically, we have to binge
another form of content--ASMR-- to get some shut-eye."
"Make you very, very, very sleepy.”
The truth is that technology undeniably
alters the viewer experience, but exactly how can be
complicated and hard to predict in real time.
Technology impacts are hard to anticipate.
A panic took hold when Amazon released the Kindle,
with many fearing it would spell the end of physical books,
but actually physical book sales are increasing as e-books plateau.
3D (after a few false attempts) finally took hold in big movie theaters,
but still hasn’t fundamentally changed most of the average
viewer experience (and hasn’t been widely adopted at home).
It’s almost certain that virtual reality technology
will be embraced by the mainstream,
but what that will look like remains anybody’s guess.
"If i can't make it to Paris, um, you'll have, you know, hologram Mark
sitting on the couch next to you."
Ultimately, as we undergo this period of rapid change,
it’s important to protect and patronize the things
you care about preserving--
like the cinema, cultural classics, or independent creators
over big platforms. And maybe, with all
this competition, less stuff will go stratospheric or hang
around as long. But there’s also
a lot to be excited about for tomorrow’s viewers.
New creative forms are opening up and
expanding the ecosystem, which can lead to more
voices getting heard.
The viewer experience is evolving, not just in what we’re given but
in how we react--because we, the viewers, are
evolving the experience, too.
"I’m excited for a world where our entertainment could connect us,
instead of isolating us."
This is The Take, on your favorite movies,
shows, and culture. Thanks for watching,
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