Why does so much streaming content, well… suck? There’s never been so much access, ease, sheer quantity, or niche, tailor-made content. We should all have so many appealing options we’ll want to be watching something literally every second of the day, right? But there’s a bigger quality crisis that’s making many of us feel less enthusiastic about most of the offerings, and less satisfied after we finish watching something we kind of wish we hadn’t. So what’s creating this quality crisis and can we come out of it?

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If you were recently caught scrolling through the endless options on your myriad assortment of streaming services, you might have asked yourself: why does everything, well, suck?

There’s never been so much access, ease, sheer quantity, or niche, tailor-made content. If you want a show about teenage lesbian vampires-well, you got it. BUT, we can’t promise it’s any good. SO, if content is like an extensive chain restaurant menu–that means we should all have so many appealing options we’ll want to be watching something literally every second of the day, right? And, yet, both box office and network numbers are down…plus the streaming titan, Netflix, has reported its first significant loss in subscribers in over a decade. The attention economy competition is dialed all the way up

The chattering class have recently pointed to a post-pandemic world to explain the decline in streaming numbers-people want to finally spend time OFF their couch. There’s also the question of inflation and a recession-studios are tightening their belts, and streamers are rethinking their content strategies. HBOMax canceling Batgirl was a bellwether of more discernment from industry brass on what to greenlight and what to make a giant tax break.

But none of these economic factors fully answers the burning question of just WHY the content sucks. There’s a bigger quality crisis that’s making many of us feel less enthusiastic about most of the offerings, and less satisfied after we finish watching something we kind of wish we hadn’t.

Maybe it’s the fact that our collective media has morphed into made for TV movies, a deluge of half-hour comedies, limited series, and reality cooking shows into one amorphous blob of suck.

So what’s creating this quality crisis and can we come out of it?

CHAPTER ONE: STREAMING + SOCIAL MEDIA KILLED THE MOVIE STAR

Let’s back up a little. In a time and land far, far away called the 90s, movie studios would buy scripts that were, gasp, original ideas-not based on established IP or a Superhero. The way they were able to sell and market the film was based on two key ingredients: capturing the zeitgeist with quality plus originality AND by attaching a star, or banking on a newcomer making a star-turn, to put butts in seats. Sure, you had the usual suspects of genres-comedy, horror, romance-BUT there were also even more sub-genres that could attract movie-goers – like, the sports comedy the nanny from hell. Or whatever genre has a man sharing his life story on a park bench.

But the streaming model has drastically affected the quality + movie star equation. Movies and TV are now categorized into genres, vibes, identities, and other more micro-tailoring (remember those teen lesbian vampires?! – that further fractions viewership. When movies and tv titles are lumped together under a banner that promises, say, nostalgia, a sub-genre of a sub-genre, identity awareness – each title doesn’t need to be memorable or specific-it just needs to check enough boxes to be considered for a hyper specific label. This shift caused a glut in content-something for everyone. When Netflix’s stock was soaring, they could and would greenlight almost anything even scripts that had been collecting dust in Hollywood for years

But when there’s something for everyone, quality is OFTEN the first to go

Not only that, but algorithms were making many of the creative decisions that creative executives used to make based on taste and gut instincts.

“Why did you even bother watching cuts if you’re just going to let some machine make all your decisions for you?”

- Barry

Algorithms told Netflix that people love Ryan Murphy shows. So they gave Murphy gazillions of bucks, with little to no guidance or actual creative oversight. Subsequently, Murphy’s recent offerings have been considered subpar to his previous shows. Or take his true crime thriller DAHMER-Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story-a show that stalked out of the gate with mediocre critical fanfare but has become a massive hit for Netflix. Does it even matter anymore that top critics hate it when a show that was panned-and barely marketed in advance-can be the most-watched series around?

Meanwhile, after the initial buzz passes or if something doesn’t hit, shows are canceled with equally little thought, before many have a chance to find their footing or audience. If we look back at the history of TV, though, many of the best-ever hits needed a few seasons to really blossom.

“the algorithm felt it wasn’t hitting the right taste clusters. T-taste clusters? It’s been… hours”

- Barry

You can’t blame bad quality all on the streaming model, and data-obsessed tech executives. Social Media has ALSO changed how we consume content exponentially. First of all-content and viewing have been inspired by social media and memes. Shorter scenes, less dialogue, more close-ups-sounds a lot like TikTok. Take Inheritance-a thriller with Lilly Collins, now streaming on Netflix. The first 5 minutes of the movie is an exposition supercut dump-rich family, messed up patriarch, dutiful but beleaguered daughter-like an agent’s elevator pitch version of a set-up.

Additionally, the reliance on second screens – smartphones, tablets, laptops – has turned movies and TV into “background content.” When it’s in the background, it doesn’t have to be too complicated or long-as long as a viewer gets the gist or the vibe-they’ll keep watching. What’s more important to this kind of consumer is the first screen in their hand-the Snapchat or TikTok that is capturing their attention economy. To compete in this winner-take-all attention economy, Movies and TV shows now try and create meme-worthy moments to share on social media, which creates inauthenticity-like a politician trying to make a viral moment happen with a zinger.

Meanwhile, on the other end of the spectrum to the ultra-fragmented streaming environment, the rise of IP-driven tentpole blockbusters has squeezed out quality, mid-budget adult-oriented drama at the movie theaters. Today, for any theatrical release to actually be seen by a big proportion of people, it needs major marketing dollars – which typically only go to safe, established IP that studios know will draw pre-existing audiences. The end result of all this is today’s few major shared cultural touchstones in fictional film and TV rarely get that status through being good —but are catapulted into the zeitgeist thanks to major marketing spends and/or being heavily meme-able. And even if not everything is terrible or even bad, so much of it is mediocre, forgettable, and quickly canceled after one or two seasons. Cultural cachet is far less derived than it once was from elite artistic gatekeepers, awards or influential critics; now, whatever platform you’re talking about, it’s all about the bottom-line number of views.

So what even is “success” in this environment? No longer do you have most content producers even primarily aiming for “good”—just for eyeballs, however fleeting. Netflix’s clear quantity over quality approach has worked for them – they have the most subscribers of any streamer, and (despite a dip in early 2022), was back to gaining subscribers in Q3, even though the 45 films it released this year averaged not fresh on rotten tomatoes with either critics or audiences.

CHAPTER TWO: CURRENT REALITY IS STRANGER THAN FICTION

Adding to this whole problem: who needs fiction anyway when real life is way more interesting? When it comes to today’s entertainment, it’s harder than ever to tell the difference between the two. Take the Kardashians –– a case study in blurring the lines. The family’s pre-season headlines over dramas, romances, and dust-ups provide fodder for the show – what you read about in TMZ months prior becomes a season arc. It’s almost as if their “real” lives have become a kind of performance art, and their show is just one way to view the content. Meanwhile, the true ratings juggernaut of 2022 wasn’t a new Netflix series. It was a defamation trial held in the Fairfax County Circuit Court.

Let’s look at the viewership of the Depp/Heard trial-one staggering stat: In six weeks, the broadcast has amassed a total of 83.9 million Hours Watched with 3.5 million Peak Viewers during the announcement of the verdict.

Let’s look at the viewership of the Depp/Heard trial-one staggering stat: In six weeks, the broadcast has amassed a total of 83.9 million Hours Watched with 3.5 million Peak Viewers during the announcement of the verdict. Now, let’s look at the reception and box office numbers of one of Depp’s last films: Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald was panned by critics

and, while it made nearly $655 million at the box office – it had the lowest ratings of any movie in the Harry Potter Universe AND pulled in the second-lowest profit for the big-budget franchise.

Let’s also take a look at the Don’t Worry Darling box office, versus look at the much larger flurry of social media engagement around the movie’s off-screen drama

Right now, reality, and the content surrounding reality, is more potent content than anything streaming or in the theater. This goes for celebrities’ impact as well. Certain celebs have MASSIVE online followings and generate countless tabloid clicks, but that doesn’t necessarily translate into big box office numbers. Why? Even when audiences do turn out for fictions, they often go for scripts inspired by reality–see: the celebrity biopic, which often gets views these days by being especially exploitative or over-the-top sensational.

“I’ve played Marilyn Monroe…to Marilyn Monroe”

- Ana De Armas, Blonde

Voyeurism and the commentary around it IS the cultural conversation. It doesn’t really matter if Don’t Worry Darling is good or not because the content surrounding the film is engaging, and often the memes, gossip, and general online conversation is ALL people want anyway. The Behind-the-Scenes gossip did seem to help Don’t Worry Darling open strong at the box office despite its middling reviews, but ticket sales plummeted quickly after that initial scandal-driven interest, and the surrounding buzz didn’t really translate into sustained audience engagement with the film

Speaking of reality, we’re living in a fractured one, where to some people Yellowstone is the biggest show going, but (as the New York Post bemoaned) the critics could care less and only want to write about Succession-which has a fraction of Yellowstone’s viewership.

It’s hard to create quality universal content when people’s realities are influenced by their niche content consumption, identities, political views, and more. When content only has to speak to a chosen few, it’s less worried about being… well, universally good.

OUTRO

There are so many contributing factors to the crisis of content. Still, maybe everyone is evaluating all this content through an… outdated lens? Yes, movies aren’t what they once were. But more of the memes of the last two years have been way funnier than anything on Late Night TV, and young people especially are finding authentic viewing experiences on platforms like Tiktok and Youtube that speak to them in ways that more polished, scripted offerings often don’t. Sure, there’s something depressing and diminishing about even the word “content” as a catch-all for what entertainment is becoming.

But perhaps all this content is experiencing growing pains, in that awkward phase between establishment modes-like the in-theater movie experience and network comedies - and the new modules of content creation living on Twitch, memes or Snapchat. Let’s hope for a future emergence of more inventive, better, realer content, whatever form that takes. Anything is more worthwhile than.

“But look I made you some content”

- Bo Burnham, Inside