august 21 vlc
You can tell a lot about someone if you know a few of their favourite shows, but you can tell even more about someone when they tell you that they don't really watch television. This happened a lot when I was in my 20s and surrounded by artists and academics who would say things like "I don't even own a television." I was some version of an artist and an academic back then and I wanted to fit in, so I told them some version of the same.
Thing is, I was cheating. Because while it was true (at times) that I didn't own a television, but it was also true that I owned computers with optical drives and the ability to connect to the internet. Between rented or purchased DVDs and torrented episodes —— I give thanks to my lord and saviour, VLC player —— I was always up to date on my shows all secret-like, in my room, to myself, and by myself.
There's something about that period that I miss. And yeah, this is about streaming platforms and how they've forever changed (read: fundamentally ruined) the television watching experience by having and making as many shows as they do and offering the collected entirety of everything to us at all times but it's also about
- how fandoms get wrecked by n00bs
- how bingeing became normalized (and why that's bad)
- how access to everything cheapens everything
- how social media helped destroy discourse about popular art
- how that led to declining quality in both television and film
Many of my thoughts are overlapping the other thoughts right now due to the late hour, my advancing age, and a 10mg edible, but I think you get what I'm talking about. And if you don't, no sweat. I'll be back on Monday.
🌲 gonna
🌼 go
🌱 touch honk
🌳 grass some
🌷 now shoos
Be good to yourself.
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