Is Anybody Watching The Same TV Shows Anymore ? \ stacker news ~culture

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Is Anybody Watching The Same TV Shows Anymore ?

1361 sats \ 29 comments \ @0xbitcoiner 16 Jun culture

2024 is the year TV went quiet.

https://m.stacker.news/35598

A few years ago, there was an easy, healthy overlap between the kind of television beloved by those who talk about TV as professionals and the kind beloved by those who talk about TV as enthusiastic amateurs. TV seemed to abound with shows that both racked up high scores on Metacritic and had highly engaged fanbases. When new episodes dropped, fans and critics alike would turn up on Twitter to discuss their faves: Succession and Schitt’s Creek and Ted Lasso and Game of Thrones and on and on.

You were gathering around the digital water cooler, and you were doing it with a show that everyone agreed was more than just a guilty pleasure. It was art. Yet somehow, without anyone quite noticing it had happened, the TV shows we watch like that seem to have vanished.

There’s still good TV out there (Abbott Elementary, Somebody Somewhere, the recently completed Reservation Dogs), and there are still shows that lots of people watch and talk about (Bridgerton, mostly), but the overlap in the Venn diagram of “critical consensus hits” and “watercooler discourse bait” is getting smaller and smaller. At this point, all that’s really occupying the niche is The Bear.

... read more at vox.com

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215 sats \ 1 reply \ @davidw 16 Jun

I literally haven't owned a TV for as long as I can remember. Maybe 10+ years. To me, I increasingly see it as a tax on my attention.

There's been far too much quantity and very little quality and I've never felt like I've missed out on anything. Remember when people used to ask you why you hadn't seen Film X or Series Y? Given they were so good, so rare & a must-watch?

Until we see a renaissance return, I'll probably hold out for wall projectors/hologram devices. Until then, the only use I have for a TV will be showing node info and/or occasional sport matches.

75 sats \ 0 replies \ @0xbitcoiner OP 16 Jun

We're tuned into the whole thing about not watching TV. 99% of the time, my TV is just serving as a second monitor.

236 sats \ 4 replies \ @Undisciplined 16 Jun

I think it ended with Game of Thrones. I doubt we'll ever get back to a place where seemingly everyone is watching the same show concurrently, over a long enough time period for it to drive regular conversations.

We sort of had it with the MCU for cinema, more recently, but that's gone too.

42 sats \ 0 replies \ @cristaiji 16 Jun

Absolutely I think Game of Thrones was the last show that I watched and enjoyed with wife and friends.

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @0xbitcoiner OP 16 Jun

I only got around GoT because everyone was raving about it, and I'm glad I did! :)

37 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 16 Jun

Same here. I think it was already in season 4 before I started watching.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Satosora 16 Jun

I feel like squid games brought everyone together for a season.

287 sats \ 3 replies \ @dieselbaby 16 Jun

This article, to me anyway, is emblematic of the kind of issue that we are seeing increasingly across various forms of media in our society -- a widening divide between the critics (journalists) and the audience/viewers of said media. I think a lot of this stems from the disconnect that many average people feel they have with the sort of folks who tend to work as critics or as part of establishment media in general; and oftentimes for good reason.

While there is certainly something to be said about how utterly cringeworthy it can be to hear some folks constantly whining about 'wokeness' and ranting from their soapboxes for the particular side they support in the "culture wars", there is more than a kernel of truth to the idea that there are certain narratives which these aforementioned members of the establishment/legacy media class tend to push and emphasize in their work.

There are plenty of examples which support this, available for anyone who isn't already convinced that this is happening to verify for themselves: simply take a visit to a website like Metacritic or, more notoriously, Rotten Tomatoes, and take a look at the striking disparity frequently observed between the "critics' score" on a film and the "audience score" for the same film. It had gotten so bad on Rotten Tomatoes that they wound up changing the way their whole site worked, so as to try and divert attention away from this phenomenon...obviously, it didn't work.

If I had to try and distill the reasons behind this kind of thing happening into a single issue/point, to me, this is merely another of many similar reactionary responses from the general public against those who they consider to be elitists, snobs. The sort of people who don't even bother to try and hide their obvious biases when writing a review about a movie or TV show, and worse still, find several ways to funnel their reviews through a political or sociocultural lens. In doing so, they turn what was supposed to be a piece on the actual merits of the underlying film or TV series itself (the writing, the actors' performances, the production quality, directing, etc.) into what comes across little more than an opportunity for the author to publish yet another piece about topics like diversity, racial/gender/sexual matters or other political topics that most people are tired of hearing about...of course, those who complain are typically labeled as trolls, incels, etc.

It's all rather exhausting tbh.

That said, there's actually quite a lot of good TV series that have come out in the last couple of years. Many of them wind up flying under the radar, of course a few of them do manage to become critical favorites (and lesser few still are actually as good as the gushing critics' adoration would suggest), but with the sheer volume of material being released every season, there's bound to be several that you've missed. I know it's happened to me, and I watch a lot of film/TV.

I'm happy to give some recommendations for good series in this thread if anyone wants any. A couple of entertaining series that I watched recently were "Sugar" (with Colin Farrell) and "The Gentlemen" (the Guy Ritchie series - which was much better than I'd anticipated it to be).

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @JesseJames 16 Jun

+1 on The Gentleman (TV Show) was nicely surprised as well...

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @0xbitcoiner OP 16 Jun

You raise some interesting points. Thank you for the lengthy response, I always appreciate it.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @SilkyNinja 16 Jun

I dub the phenomena as “Didactic Entertainment” and wonder if it is a push down from networks with perverse incentives to instruct us uneducated slobs who just sit and watch what we’re given…I imagine it takes some strongarming or (more likely) reputational clout from producers, writers and directors who prefer to assert their desires rather than kowtow to the network.

185 sats \ 1 reply \ @SilkyNinja 16 Jun

Headline: The problem might be the phenomenon of “Didactic Entertainment” likely compounded by writers and producers following notes from networks instead of considering what the audience wants in conjunction with what the writer wants. What are network incentives these days…critical reviews? Audience numbers? How do shows get funded?

Somebody Somewhere was pretty good, but also sort of a downer. The Bear is atmospherically, like, a “bottom of the sea” downer. The general audience generally does not like (particularly atmospheric) downer shows. The other critical shows mentioned have kept me away because 1) I personally get icked out by comedies in a school setting since that HS musical show like a decade ago (never watched Community despite the recommendation I had) 2) while I have been interested in Reservation Dogs, I hesitate because I can anticipate that it’s generally an atmospherically down show that approaches the cultural divide in this didactic, lecture-like way instead of via an audience-inclusive approach.

Generally, the “critical shows” the author mentions are really openly Woke (which is to say, Didactic Entertainment). Bridgerton too is actually pretty woke, but it does not lecture you. It just shows you a different world in an audience inclusive way so that you feel like you’re actually watching a television show and not a lecture. “Didactic Entertainment” is a concept that comes up for me a lot in thought and is generally something I find a bit repulsive.

We’ve been watching Dark Matter and its lack of even an honorable mention as a worthy TV show to watch makes me feel sort of upset as the story revolves around a man who loves his family so much he literally traverses through the ether of the multiverse and his mind to return home…it’s a really beautiful modern Odyssey in this abstract way that - admittedly plays into the nearly troped-out approach to quantum physics in the realm of fantasy-heavy sci fi, but it’s still a really beautiful story…anyway…

The author might be too stuck too far up in their cable tower that they can’t see through their static clouds. Or maybe the intellectual-taste gap between the elite television critics and us plebeian audiences grows wider and I’m the idiot…

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @0xbitcoiner OP 16 Jun

The author might be too stuck too far up in their cable tower that they can’t see through their static clouds. Or maybe the intellectual-taste gap between the elite television critics and us plebeian audiences grows wider and I’m the idiot…

😂 that's an interesting observation

64 sats \ 1 reply \ @zuspotirko 16 Jun

The term you're looking for is "shared culture".

Back in the day we always had a show or movie that we could share with our peers. No matter who you met, you could at least fall back to smalltalk about the Star Wars universe or everybody watched Friends or who would be the end of How I met your mother. Or spend the night discussing theories about Harry Potter lore. It was fun. Not anymore.

The last time I remember this was a phenomenon, it was Game of Thrones, I agree with the article there. We still got blips of it like Dune, Barbenheimer or maaaybe Stranger Things? But there really wasn't equally much to talk about.

Shared culture is fading out. Too much content. Everyone is watching completely different things. Shared culture is dying.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @0xbitcoiner OP 16 Jun

I found the concept of 'shared culture' quite intriguing. It seems to me that you're right.

32 sats \ 1 reply \ @BononXD 16 Jun

I saw a video on Polish YouTube that talks identically to this article about TV and video games, but it's hard for me to say anything about TV. The reason is that I haven't watched it since at least the 7th grade of primary school, i.e. when I was 13. wow, as I think about it as I write this, it will soon be 6 years, a long time. The main reason is that in Poland public television has become a propaganda mouthpiece for the authorities and I have grown out of animated films. The discussed problem, based on the example of video games, was simply explained by the fact that corporations, here probably the cinematography, think people are idiots and only think about how they can save money, spend crap and earn as much as they can from it, in video games with a historical context, for example, they refrain from discussing it with experts who would determine, for example, what is the level of historical truth in historical games. It seems that there is a similar process here and consumers' wallets are drained by simply giving them the poorest possible quality

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @0xbitcoiner OP 16 Jun

The pervasive propaganda on television was also one of the reasons I gave up watching it a few years ago.

32 sats \ 0 replies \ @StillStackinAfterAllTheseYears 16 Jun

I watch and enjoy a lot of TV; one of the joys of peak tv (or post-peak tv) is that there's so much stuff, there's always something that interests me, even if it's not "hot."

I don't miss the monoculture.

32 sats \ 1 reply \ @grayruby 16 Jun

Do you think this is a result of the writers strike last year? Definitely seems like less new content this year and a lot of productions were delayed because of the strike.

80 sats \ 0 replies \ @0xbitcoiner OP 16 Jun

It could have had an influence. I'm not sure if it was the most significant factor, but I know it's incredibly challenging to produce a TV series that attracts as many viewers as GoT, for instance. Like GoT, it's only one in a decade :)

49 sats \ 0 replies \ @SatsMate 16 Jun

I rarely watch TV anymore. I pretty much just listen to youtube podcasts and watch the occasional scary movie on TV. As I get older, I also move more towards documentaries and true crime-type shows.

37 sats \ 0 replies \ @oliverweiss 16 Jun

The Simpsons

37 sats \ 0 replies \ @guts 16 Jun

I still watch old series as Two and Half Men, even sometimes I lurk Pluto TV. I can't watch new show when you can pattern recognize all DEI new content has become. I'm sure content is going to revolutionize because AI, looking forward we can see decentralized content with new fresh creativity.

27 sats \ 0 replies \ @Coinsreporter 16 Jun

I hadn't had a TV for almost 20 years of my life. Because some kids in my family caught the habit of using our phones for their fun. We had no choice but to decide to own a TV. It's just 7 days old now and still figuring out if there's a show that I must watch. Also, it's nearly impossible these days with kids sitting lazily inside homes dir to excessive hot and humid outside and they are enjoying their summer vacation.

Thanks! I will give a try to your recommendations in July When they will start going back to school.

16 sats \ 0 replies \ @southside263 16 Jun

would assume no…

I Grew up with radio, 3 tv channels and no internet until university.

My kids are consuming via netflix, spotify..

more choice, less commons..?

16 sats \ 0 replies \ @cristaiji 16 Jun

It's an interesting thought. There are so many TV shows now I ignore 99.9% of them. I only watch You Tube and usually educational content.

The other question that I always consider is to what extent TV shows are just another form of propaganda.

Actually I enjoy watching satirical reviews about TV and film than the shows themselves. The 'Critical Drinker' on YT is hilarious!

32 sats \ 0 replies \ @JesseJames 16 Jun

As far as war movies go. I can watch and re-watch "Generation Kill" HBO mini series over and over. Probably the last the most real depiction of true USMC movies (with Full Metal Jacket being a Gold standard of all USMC movies) That was the last one for me... After that they all kinda went $hitty.... YMMV

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Satosora 17 Jun

I think Shogun was a pretty big hit. I just dont know how they will do a season 2.

11 sats \ 0 replies \ @BitcoinAbhi 17 Jun

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