Somewhat of a side question, but would you potentially be able to combine patreon/substack into a single subscription? I subscribe to the Frot and wouldn't mind throwing some extra bucks for the newsletter but it would be nice to keep the payments in one place.
Discord comes the closest of the social medias to a "casual hang", I think.
The original “all options available always” was video stores, which were of course less convenient than streaming services because you had to put on pants, but also better in a way, because you didn't have to remember which service had that thing someone told you to check out -- all the stores had everything, mostly.
A video store just opened up across the street from me (Vidiots, originally in Santa Monica, now in northeast L.A.) and it's kind of surprising how much more quickly I find random things I want to see there than when flipping across streaming services. More fun, too, especially chatting to clerks. It's worth putting on pants!
This comes up every time Twitter remembers VH1's I Love The series: something else we've lost in the streaming era is monocultural memory via passive consumption. Think of all those old sitcoms on Nick at Nite you wouldn't normally watch, but that's what was on, so it was either Happy Days or nothing. Everyone had a semi-baseline of past knowledge and shared references. Now, as you noted here and in your Razzies piece, there's the five movies/shows everyone watches, and everything else is something you and a guy 100 miles away watched.
Anyway, I really enjoyed Hijack, which ended last night and was a solid, stupid summer thriller I won't remember in a month.
Anecdotally most people I know spend more time rewatching old touchstone series like Seinfeld than watching new stuff. I think that's the modern equivalent of watching "what's on."
I miss flipping through and finding an old movie and just watching from whatever point I catch it. The other day I watched The Big Short. I had seen it when it was out and remember liking it, but it was like watching it for the first time. It made me realize that part of the reason that I know The Breakfast Club by heart is because it was on TBS at least 5 times a month. I don’t rewatch movies any more. But I watch comedies on repeat. Weird.
While I agree whole-heartedly with the sentiment (even as it relates to the extra-TV real world), the idea of watching episodic TV is far better than the experience. J.J. Abrams gave us the prototype of addictive, cliff-hanger, mystery box TV in the form of Lost, and even though, intellectually, I despise it... I can't quit it.
I kind of get it but this is sort of all-you-can-eat-buffet vs need a reservation restaurant thing. I have cable and I stream certain things. Not sure there is a perfect option but it seems like it's more about viewer behaviors than how content is created/distributed.
I find it great that I can hit up so many different sources for movies/programming that I would have otherwise missed out on - whether oddball old stuff or new. But it is a bit frustrating at times that some newer episodic programming is very short (6-8 episodes) and then you don't know if the next "season" is three years from now, not happening, or coming out soon. That does fuel binging to a certain extent.
But I should add that I don't get caught up too much in any one series...
Somewhat of a side question, but would you potentially be able to combine patreon/substack into a single subscription? I subscribe to the Frot and wouldn't mind throwing some extra bucks for the newsletter but it would be nice to keep the payments in one place.
Here here!
Discord comes the closest of the social medias to a "casual hang", I think.
The original “all options available always” was video stores, which were of course less convenient than streaming services because you had to put on pants, but also better in a way, because you didn't have to remember which service had that thing someone told you to check out -- all the stores had everything, mostly.
A video store just opened up across the street from me (Vidiots, originally in Santa Monica, now in northeast L.A.) and it's kind of surprising how much more quickly I find random things I want to see there than when flipping across streaming services. More fun, too, especially chatting to clerks. It's worth putting on pants!
This comes up every time Twitter remembers VH1's I Love The series: something else we've lost in the streaming era is monocultural memory via passive consumption. Think of all those old sitcoms on Nick at Nite you wouldn't normally watch, but that's what was on, so it was either Happy Days or nothing. Everyone had a semi-baseline of past knowledge and shared references. Now, as you noted here and in your Razzies piece, there's the five movies/shows everyone watches, and everything else is something you and a guy 100 miles away watched.
Anyway, I really enjoyed Hijack, which ended last night and was a solid, stupid summer thriller I won't remember in a month.
Hijack partly inspired this. I was definitely watching that thinking "this is watchable, and totally unimportant. I love it."
Anecdotally most people I know spend more time rewatching old touchstone series like Seinfeld than watching new stuff. I think that's the modern equivalent of watching "what's on."
I miss flipping through and finding an old movie and just watching from whatever point I catch it. The other day I watched The Big Short. I had seen it when it was out and remember liking it, but it was like watching it for the first time. It made me realize that part of the reason that I know The Breakfast Club by heart is because it was on TBS at least 5 times a month. I don’t rewatch movies any more. But I watch comedies on repeat. Weird.
While I agree whole-heartedly with the sentiment (even as it relates to the extra-TV real world), the idea of watching episodic TV is far better than the experience. J.J. Abrams gave us the prototype of addictive, cliff-hanger, mystery box TV in the form of Lost, and even though, intellectually, I despise it... I can't quit it.
I kind of get it but this is sort of all-you-can-eat-buffet vs need a reservation restaurant thing. I have cable and I stream certain things. Not sure there is a perfect option but it seems like it's more about viewer behaviors than how content is created/distributed.
I find it great that I can hit up so many different sources for movies/programming that I would have otherwise missed out on - whether oddball old stuff or new. But it is a bit frustrating at times that some newer episodic programming is very short (6-8 episodes) and then you don't know if the next "season" is three years from now, not happening, or coming out soon. That does fuel binging to a certain extent.
But I should add that I don't get caught up too much in any one series...