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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 30, 2024

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cultural selection of California

California's 2 economic capitals don't talk too much. SoCal and Bay Area might as well be in 2 different states. There really isn't much of 'California-wide' anything. NYC <-> LA have more cultural exchanged than SF <-> LA.

Hollywood is that they are now so consistently stupid in one direction that it's functionally indistinguishable from malice.

Hollywood has always been stupid. What's changed is competition. Their stupidity is now an existential risk. So you're seeing frantic & ill-considered moves that 'securely stupid' industry could hide away. Hollywood accounting & incestuous cartels used to be able to hide a lot of terrible movies. Not so much anymore.

The last decade has put Hollywood in crisis mode. It comes from 3 sources:

  • Big picture phenomenon - Marvel warped their minds. Mega budget low-risk adaptations & sequels was the way to go. This closed the door on promising directors for a whole decade. The only exception was horror, and look at the sheer number of great horror movies that have been made.
  • Netflix & Youtube postulated that all media was 'content'. Hollywood stupidly agreed, and now it has to compete for attention against games, reels & TV shows alike.
  • Covid destroyed movie theaters. Movies are media, but theaters are an experience. One that is deeply embedded into the populace. Until now, it had allowed Hollywood to stay shielded from the generational onslaught of 'social media content'. The covid shock destroyed these deep associations, and I think they're destroyed for good.

Nothing about this is surprising. We've seen it before with News Media.

Google & Facebook destroyed all except a couple of news organizations. Outside of NYT, WSJ & Co, traditional news media is a shell of its former self. Yes, we all suddenly observed their stupidity for a whole decade as they were dying. But, they too were always stupid. But, stupidity only reveals itself in face of genuine competition.


Talent is one in a million

You are absolutely right. And non-nepo talents (think Gen-Z Tarantino) are finding an outlet in social media. Traditional media just doesn't make money anymore.

The best talents in News Media either went to the few bastions that pay well (NYT), started sub-stacks or became social media influencers.