I think there's an element you're missing of this whole outrage culture - it's not just a prisoner waiting for the beatings to stop and expecting modern mainstream entertainment to be good, it's about making it low-status to enjoy said mainstream entertainment. Given that this stuff exists and is being made despite massive losses, none of these guys can individually or collectively stop the things from being made by not talking about it. But what they *can* do is make it uncool to enjoy.
I watched THE LAST JEDI in theaters with friends, and we were all angry about it as I left the theater afterwards...but my assumption, and the assumptions of the friends I watched with, was that we'd be back in theaters for the next movie anyway, and just hope the next one was better. Seeing this type of video was what convinced me that this wasn't an accidental failure, that this was a deliberate sinking of the story, and that I should not watch the next movie, or any of the ones after it.
And on a larger scale, these videos and this type of analysis got me off modern movies and television almost entirely. I *did* attempt (unsucessfully; I could not get my browser to actually play it) to watch the new FOUNDATION series out of a morbid curiosity, but that's the only new Western TV show I've even tried to watch in the last five years. The fact that I started thinking of enjoying new TV shows as intrinsically uncool, thanks to this outrage culture, undoubtedly helped; I'm probably not alone in that.
I'm glad those videos helped you wean yourself out of mainstream entertainment, but I don't think I agree that the outrage culture have done anything more than keeping the dialectic going. The whole 'barbenheimer' phenomenon should be proof of that. Perhaps it might have done some good at some point, idk. But the game is getting old.
Sure, BARBIE and OPPENHEIMER both made money, but most of the critics in that circle liked OPPENHEIMER to begin with and would have recommended it anyway, and most of the audience for BARBIE consisted of people who had no interest at all in that genre of video and wouldn't have been influenced by them either way.
I think it's easy to forget that people who rent streaming services and the like are going to have ads and recommendations for the latest X shown to them every day regardless of what critics do or don't say about X. If every outrage and review video in the world stopped talking about X, it would still be recommended to tens of millions of people at least. And I think it's also easy to forget that shows and movies can lose inordinate amounts of money without the studios changing direction; the mere fact that the audience isn't big the first time around doesn't mean they won't try again for round 2, and push it even harder. None of the usual channels I know or reviewers I watch even *knew* about the new FOUNDATION series, and that didn't stop it from getting a season 2 and a season 3.
I completely understand why our host hates that people who have gotten popular use that popularity to attack (and thereby draw attention to) the mainstream rather than promote (and thereby draw attention to) the independent and non-mainstream. But I'd argue that these attacks are still very necessary. Merely losing money isn't enough to stop this stuff. Mere apathy isn't enough to stop this stuff. The last decade or so should be proof of that. To stop it, this stuff needs to be actively uncool to enjoy or watch - studios wouldn't be spending so much time and energy trying to manipulate Rotten Tomatoes' audience scores et al. if that weren't true. And when any given person hits his breaking point and decides to look for something else, the alternative needs to be there for him. These outrage videos do the first half of that, and our host, and others like him, are doing the second. And we need both.
I have very high hopes for these Writer's Guild and Actor's Guild strikes. The consensus I've seen among the culture war reviewers is that, the longer the strike goes on, the more older and independent stuff they'll cover, and if you look you can see that starting here and there already as the backlog from before the strikes starts to run out. If there's *no* mainstream films and TV shows to compete with, then we all get our wish. I hope they keep striking indefinitely, and I hope the studios hold out indefinitely.
I'm hoping it becomes more low status. Scrolling through HeelvsBabyface's channel was like a blast from the past when I still watched the Drinker and the Quartering. I get that there needs to be criticism going on the offensive, but I am against an endless spew of just reacting. In my perfect world, these YouTubers would be doing a mix of both criticizing modern entertainment and praising old/independent stuff, but for whatever reason (likely clicks), the latter doesn't get made as often.
I think there's an element you're missing of this whole outrage culture - it's not just a prisoner waiting for the beatings to stop and expecting modern mainstream entertainment to be good, it's about making it low-status to enjoy said mainstream entertainment. Given that this stuff exists and is being made despite massive losses, none of these guys can individually or collectively stop the things from being made by not talking about it. But what they *can* do is make it uncool to enjoy.
I watched THE LAST JEDI in theaters with friends, and we were all angry about it as I left the theater afterwards...but my assumption, and the assumptions of the friends I watched with, was that we'd be back in theaters for the next movie anyway, and just hope the next one was better. Seeing this type of video was what convinced me that this wasn't an accidental failure, that this was a deliberate sinking of the story, and that I should not watch the next movie, or any of the ones after it.
And on a larger scale, these videos and this type of analysis got me off modern movies and television almost entirely. I *did* attempt (unsucessfully; I could not get my browser to actually play it) to watch the new FOUNDATION series out of a morbid curiosity, but that's the only new Western TV show I've even tried to watch in the last five years. The fact that I started thinking of enjoying new TV shows as intrinsically uncool, thanks to this outrage culture, undoubtedly helped; I'm probably not alone in that.
I'm glad those videos helped you wean yourself out of mainstream entertainment, but I don't think I agree that the outrage culture have done anything more than keeping the dialectic going. The whole 'barbenheimer' phenomenon should be proof of that. Perhaps it might have done some good at some point, idk. But the game is getting old.
Sure, BARBIE and OPPENHEIMER both made money, but most of the critics in that circle liked OPPENHEIMER to begin with and would have recommended it anyway, and most of the audience for BARBIE consisted of people who had no interest at all in that genre of video and wouldn't have been influenced by them either way.
I think it's easy to forget that people who rent streaming services and the like are going to have ads and recommendations for the latest X shown to them every day regardless of what critics do or don't say about X. If every outrage and review video in the world stopped talking about X, it would still be recommended to tens of millions of people at least. And I think it's also easy to forget that shows and movies can lose inordinate amounts of money without the studios changing direction; the mere fact that the audience isn't big the first time around doesn't mean they won't try again for round 2, and push it even harder. None of the usual channels I know or reviewers I watch even *knew* about the new FOUNDATION series, and that didn't stop it from getting a season 2 and a season 3.
I completely understand why our host hates that people who have gotten popular use that popularity to attack (and thereby draw attention to) the mainstream rather than promote (and thereby draw attention to) the independent and non-mainstream. But I'd argue that these attacks are still very necessary. Merely losing money isn't enough to stop this stuff. Mere apathy isn't enough to stop this stuff. The last decade or so should be proof of that. To stop it, this stuff needs to be actively uncool to enjoy or watch - studios wouldn't be spending so much time and energy trying to manipulate Rotten Tomatoes' audience scores et al. if that weren't true. And when any given person hits his breaking point and decides to look for something else, the alternative needs to be there for him. These outrage videos do the first half of that, and our host, and others like him, are doing the second. And we need both.
I have very high hopes for these Writer's Guild and Actor's Guild strikes. The consensus I've seen among the culture war reviewers is that, the longer the strike goes on, the more older and independent stuff they'll cover, and if you look you can see that starting here and there already as the backlog from before the strikes starts to run out. If there's *no* mainstream films and TV shows to compete with, then we all get our wish. I hope they keep striking indefinitely, and I hope the studios hold out indefinitely.
I'm hoping it becomes more low status. Scrolling through HeelvsBabyface's channel was like a blast from the past when I still watched the Drinker and the Quartering. I get that there needs to be criticism going on the offensive, but I am against an endless spew of just reacting. In my perfect world, these YouTubers would be doing a mix of both criticizing modern entertainment and praising old/independent stuff, but for whatever reason (likely clicks), the latter doesn't get made as often.