Welcome to the post-entertainment society. Where(unfortunately), culture has taken an infinite sabbatical( coerced into, I dare add).
It is the year of the Presidential elections in the US and we would have the ubiquitous ” State Of The Union ” speech. Nothing much changes in politics- your local grocery would have more variety to offer. That is why the need of the hour for all of us in The Creator Economy is to have a ” State Of The Culture ” speech.
The year 2024 has already been a tumultuous, fast paced and dangerous time for the creative economy(if one can still call it that). Entertainment will be soon writing its obituary, forgive my sounding alarmist.
If one were to equate politics with culture, the two pegs on which culture thrives are Arts and Entertainment. We have already seen the HIPPO in the room there was undeniably Entertainment, by a long way and Arts got relegated if not subsumed totally. Call it collateral damage if you may.
That is not the point here but. What we are witnessing is a post-entertainment culture where the arts is certainly not getting a helping hand. Worse, the big daddy aka Entertainment is in hot waters too. Big studios viz Disney, Paramount, Universal, Warner etc are on delicate ice. Layoffs, having to release a big film on OTT within a few days of theatrical release, hiving off business divisions and canceling movie releases seem to be the order of the day amongst these established giants. Music labels see more value in artists who are old than young, dead than alive( look at Sony Music’s acquisition of Michael Jackson’s catalog of songs for US$ 1.2 Billion).
What is causing this tectonic shift? Swiping, scrolling, wasting time or call it whatever you may want to. The non-stop run of ceaseless(meaningless) activity. And who is the boss here? Yes, you guessed it right- distraction– a few seconds of dopamine hits, is all that it takes and BigSocialMediaTech( TikTok, YouTube, Meta, Instagram, Twitter etc) are playing all the best cards they have to ensure a non-stop supply where looking up from our ‘domicile of nirvana‘(mobile phones) is made to seem like an avoidable, painful chore.
This is the best ” rewards program ” on the planet. AmEx etc are you guys listening? Sell our attention cheap(and carelessly) to the predators listed above and in return get bouts of the neurochemical dopamine to feel good and trigger the stimuli to rinse and repeat. You by now know where we are headed. The cycle of consumption, reward, repetition is so habit forming that we are hooked(with no line, no sinker). Addiction is a better terminology. And billions are unwitting volunteers in the biggest social engineering experiment in human history.
The goal of the giants of social media is only one- amp up the ‘ addiction quotient ‘. Get people to crave more, day in, day out. Make them feel pulverised at missing out-FOMO(Fear of Missing Out) if you may. Create a world of junkies where they are the dealers and the peddlers. And laugh their way to the bank. Everything is designed in a manner to lock users into an addictive cycle. Fixate you with dependent junkie status. Optimize the dopamine doom loop. And the virtual reality headsets that the likes of Apple, Facebook etc are urging you to try out raise more concerns-as they rewire users’ brains.
Even the dumbest entertainment( read a goofy looking cat video) would seem like Macbeth. Or a photo of a hamburger would do just as nicely.
Welcome to the new culture- sorry mindless entertainment- sorry compulsive activity- sorry dopamine addiction!
The clock is ticking or is it TikToking?