TheSocial Implications of Streaming Video Media
Back in my days of childhood we would watch what movies we owned on DVD or VCR, we watched what came on T.V. and we would go to the theaters. Those were the only ways of watching movies, so if you wanted to see one again, you had to go buy it or go down to Blockbusters. Yes, I was alive for and made memories of Blockbusters. Now we have a seemingly infinite number of streaming websites and applications. Well, what does that mean for the way we watch and what we take away from movies?
One could say that it causes us to not get the full experience as there are so many movies and shows that we commit to a ‘one and done’ kind of deal, endlessly trying to watch all that there is out there. So, if we only watch something once then we just get the bare minimum. We don’t have the experience of seeing something new every time we watch it or getting the deeper meaning and message. So, more and more movie makers are making movies that can adhere to this standard of a more surface level view, something you don’t go to the theaters to watch because there’s no reason to when you can either get it on Netflix, Amazon or anywhere else online. This is also leading to a rise in YouTubers who make the “what you may have missed” videos for almost any and every movie that comes out these days as few people are re-watching movies despite our increased availability to do so.
The access to streaming means more opportunities for movie makers as these rising tycoons I mentioned are making so much money that one flop wouldn’t hurt them as their revenue doesn’t come from the box office or Blu-Ray sales, it comes from the monthly memberships which they still make bank from, but they do want to make better movies and shows in order to keep their subscribers paying month after month. This surplus also means there is infinitely more terrible media being produced which we don’t want to watch twice. It is all surface level, a cool topic but terribly written, crafted or acted. But when there is that movie or show that blows everyone away we will re-watch the hell out of it. So, we’re practically just filling our time watching useless garbage rotting our mind (wow I never thought I’d be the one to say that, but then again, I used to watch good movies) until we find something that’s worth-while. Even then we over watch the one good thing for a couple of days before it disappears into the far back reaches of our minds and we move on.
There has been an exponential rise in the amount if content we have access to, which may plateau at some point as there will simply not be any more new, good, exhilarating, important, original ideas to fulfill. Of course, the larger motion picture companies (Paramount, MGM, Disney, etc.) will continue to make box office movies and rely on those sales to some extent, as it is the measurement of success of a movie, but they are also selling the distribution rights to companies like Amazon and Netflix so they’ll be able to be streamed to the customers and hopefully get them interested in seeing another movie by the same company or people, because streaming for the most part is about getting your name out there, showing what you can do. Which brings up an amazing point. We as the generalized entertainment industry has been dominated by straight white men and their stories, so this increase of available platforming will, or at least should in theory, allow for more marginalized voices to be heard. Yeah, some of it may be crap by the standards, but those are standards of the straight white men who have been building on since the 1920s when motion pictures first started.
All of this is good I would say, but from a business side of things in this industry, we must be aware that the addition of larger companies and blockbusters being put on streaming websites has caused us, the audience, to stop attending movie theaters. If I am the average person who doesn’t think too much about the experience of seeing a movie in a theater why should or would I pay thirteen dollars to go see something in theaters when I can wait a little while for it to come out on the streaming service I already pay for?
Kids don’t really understand how a disk works anymore. When I was with my ex-girlfriend her young cousins, not quite in their double digits yet, were watching a movie on a DVD and the disk froze. The younger one asked what happened and the older said, “oh it’s just buffering.” Sorry kid, your disk is scratched and you need a new one, or you can try to buff it out, but good luck. I’ve wasted a lot of time attempting that. It seems as though as we get further into this technology bubble we lose the knowledge of how it all really works. But, then again, that’s what happened with the floppy disk and first computers and I don’t think many people would say we need to go back to those.
We can also say that streaming distances us from the people around us as we’re not sharing the experience of watching something with someone. This can be good and bad too. Yes, we mostly binge watch whatever we want alone on our laptops in bed at 2am but we also watch whatever we want. No bargaining or fighting over what to watch. We can also watch media together if we so choose but that’s a human decision not the site’s responsibility. So maybe we’re all just assholes with no self-control or discipline to connect on a human level. With streaming, you also get people watching the same shows at different paces making it hard to talk about them without spoilers, but of course when you are on the same page we still love to chat away. All in all, I’m not sure what to think about all this. As a craft I hate watching things on my phone. I generally prefer one to two hour movies to short format or long running shows. But I an conscious as to how this change can socially change the industry, which sounds pretty good to me.
Sept. 27, 2018