Current Events > Mainstream American media has become completely stagnant

(+) Yeah! (+)

Modern movies are poop

Modern top 40 is dominated by deliberately formulaic pop produced by a tiny handful of songwriting teams

TV seems the best off and even then I'm struggling to think of any landmark series that have STARTED in the past 5 years or so

When a fucking STAR WARS film feels like it will have no lasting cultural impact there's a problem.
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I think it's a golden age of movies and TV to be honest. Sure the really mainstream stuff is poop on a stick, but thanks to Netflix et al, there's a ton of new, great stuff that's more niche and is better quality than ever. You just need to look for it, and thankfully these days it's easy to access.
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Mainstream media has always been stagnant. The past just seems better because there was more time for gems to emerge; if you look at any decade as a whole, there's more formulaic lowest-common-denominator than stuff that is worth while.

It might even be a category mistake to say media can be stagnant, because ultimately, humanity has always been entertained by very basic and common motifs. Masterworks of art and entertainment are just the perfection of these common motifs, and it's ridiculous to expect perfection at all times. EDIT: What I mean by this is that instead of saying media is stagnant, it might make more sense to say it's static* because what underlies media never really changes.
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Stalolin posted...

I think it's a golden age of movies and TV to be honest. Sure the really mainstream stuff is poop on a stick, but thanks to Netflix et al, there's a ton of new, great stuff that's more niche and is better quality than ever. You just need to look for it, and thankfully these days it's easy to access.

I agree. The mainstream stuff is almost entirely unwatchable, but when you get away from it there is a lot to appreciate. I feel things were still better 10-20 years ago though... fuck I feel old.
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Being a contrarian doesn't make you cool. There is nothing wrong with popular things
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UnfairRepresent posted...

Being a contrarian doesn't make you cool. There is nothing wrong with popular things

It's relative. Person A can love Big Bang Theory while Person B thinks it is for jerkoffs.
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TheCyborgNinja posted...

UnfairRepresent posted...

Being a contrarian doesn't make you cool. There is nothing wrong with popular things

It's relative. Person A can love Big Bang Theory while Person B thinks it is for jerkoffs.

Sure but youre not saying you hate big bang theory. You're saying you hate all popular media.

That's not reasonable, It's a plea for attention and a want to be seen as different and special
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No matter when in time it is, you're going to have people saying everything sucks and it used to be better.
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butthole666 posted...

When a f***ing STAR WARS film feels like it will have no lasting cultural impact there's a problem.

go back and watch the old ones

the only one with 'cultural impact' really was a new hope, and not because its story hadn't been told a billion times before

media has been stagnant for at least a thousand years. we tell the same story over and over with different characters and the best thing to do is simply enjoy it for what it is.
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Tv has never been better. A lot of great movies have come out this decade. And if you don't like mainstream music, it's never been easier to find stuff that you WILL like. So stop complaining
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As far as Star Wars goes, we knew it was going to get watered down a bit in favor of more content. When Disney bought Lucas Film, they'd given us six movies in thirty five years. Disney took over and we've had three in the last three years.

We're getting Star Wars movies six times as frequently, and people still find something to complain about.
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Yes there is more content than ever and as such more great shit to be found, but the disparity between what's GOOD and what makes money seems like it's never been bigger. Everything feels very homogenized, and even in underground media a lot of the great things coming out are just revivalist/reinterpretations of older trends rather than actual new ground being broken.

UnfairRepresent posted...

Being a contrarian doesn't make you cool.

The irony.
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