Also, nobody has any time for entertainment. Office workers all working 80 hours a week fearing stack ranking, PIPs, layoffs, needing to scramble to get a new H1B job or risk getting kicked out of the country and having to uproot kids. Service workers are working 120 hours a week across 3 jobs. Single people are working 100+ hours a week studying and interviewing and not getting jobs.
While this may be true for some people, overall this is not backed up by the data.
The average amount of time spent doing "Relaxing and leisure" activities (mostly TV) has increased 6% in the last twenty years. There was a small decrease after the post-COVID peak, but working time has also decreased in this time frame.
Interesting, I have seen people be stretched thin and more stretched but I haven't seen people working 80-120 hour weeks. Different circles maybe?
I do feel for anyone trying to find a new H1B sponsor. I've lived and worker as a foreigner before, its stressful for sure. It is also a tough spot for a country to be in, if your domestic labor is struggling to find or keep jobs itsnhard to justify continuing protections for foreign labor.
Very little. It's that America's tax incentives are not competitive. They fly crews to make game shows from LA to london because its cheaper to shoot a show there. There's strong momentum to change that at the moment, there's a bill that might actually get passed that will make the tax environment competitive again in the states that stack theirs on it.
Before AI showed up the UN released a report on the Attention Economy. It said Supply of content had vastly outstripped Demand. It decoupled because entertainment/media was being used to push other products. The telcos, amazon, google/fb and many others were all subsidizing content to push some other product. Exploding info chasing finite non growing eyeballs and time.
Some of these graphs don't support the hypothesis. The movie one for example shows that employment is just slightly below what it was just after the financial crisis of 2008, and shows record job loss after the covid bump which we all know resulted in massive hiring sprees in a lot of sectors followed by massive layoffs. Is the movie and movie production sector really experiencing an apocalyptic downturn where the line will reach zero, or just returning to its median?
Apparently the amount of movies actually being produced has barely recovered to post 2008 levels.
There is some resurgence in quality here and there but then there is Avengers, MCU, Star Wars and idk how you can balance that with any amount of quality indie products
This might be (unintentionally?) part of the reason for the original subject: how many jobs does the Avengers IP pipeline support? How about for a single artifact output by it--one TV show, for example?
And how many people work on a well-loved indie artifact of about the same market position?
Gonna guess the latter supports way fewer jobs. (This isn't meant as a judgment in taste or moralizing--my own entertainment tastes run indie towards pretentious, so economically I'm part of the problem.)
The only thing I’ve been watching lately are Soviet films on youtube. Mosfilms and Gorky films have their full catalogs on there. Sergei Bondarchuk’s films are deeply moving. Seventeen Moments from Spring is incredible as well- the Soviet answer to James Bond. For some reason it feels deeply refreshing to watch these films instead of what the US has been producing.
Not even short form. I found myself watching an hour and a half long YT video of a dude jet skiing from WA state to Alaska and can’t even hype myself up to watch a feature film.
Many people spend hours browsing Tik Tok rather than watching film or television.
Even long form YouTube videos are highly popular. Many folks spend time watching those rather than movies or tv. I believe Tom Hanks was speaking about this many years ago.
That being said….
I remember growing up and my teachers would always emphasize the importance of reading. I’m sure it would be a great thing for humanity if everyone spent their free time reading books rather than on film or television. In such a scenario would people complain about job loss then? This could be a fruitful idea for a science fiction short story come to think of it.
This is my thinking. TikTok is very entertaining. I can’t do hours, but 30 minutes to an hour is great. Compare it to an unswipable hours long sporting event, 30 minutes looking for the right movie you quit 30 minutes in or have to pause till another day because something comes up, or tv shows with unresolved endings that leave you feeling like you are in a toxic relationship-hating the commitment but afraid of the sense of loss.
Habitual use of shorter and shorter form content trains you to expect gratification faster and faster. There is most certainly a better reward for delaying gratification. A really good movie can leave you on a complete high or completely devastated. I'm pretty certain tiktok cannot. It's cheap quick entertainment but if you get used to that fast shallow enjoyment you can't hold on long enough for the good stuff.
Every streaming service feels more and more user hostile. If I want to watch South Park it’s a 15$ a month subscription just for that .
Paramount Plus has nothing else.
I want to watch Lanterns, another 30$ a month.
Maybe King of The Hill , 20$ a month. The Reboot has this weird lazy animation style.
The average amount of time spent doing "Relaxing and leisure" activities (mostly TV) has increased 6% in the last twenty years. There was a small decrease after the post-COVID peak, but working time has also decreased in this time frame.
https://www.bls.gov/tus/tables.htm
I do feel for anyone trying to find a new H1B sponsor. I've lived and worker as a foreigner before, its stressful for sure. It is also a tough spot for a country to be in, if your domestic labor is struggling to find or keep jobs itsnhard to justify continuing protections for foreign labor.
Apparently the amount of movies actually being produced has barely recovered to post 2008 levels.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/187122/movie-releases-in...
(I still jump in for the occasional video tutorial etc but it’s always targeted - go for one thing, swoop in, close it when I’m done.
And how many people work on a well-loved indie artifact of about the same market position?
Gonna guess the latter supports way fewer jobs. (This isn't meant as a judgment in taste or moralizing--my own entertainment tastes run indie towards pretentious, so economically I'm part of the problem.)
Many people spend hours browsing Tik Tok rather than watching film or television.
Even long form YouTube videos are highly popular. Many folks spend time watching those rather than movies or tv. I believe Tom Hanks was speaking about this many years ago.
That being said….
I remember growing up and my teachers would always emphasize the importance of reading. I’m sure it would be a great thing for humanity if everyone spent their free time reading books rather than on film or television. In such a scenario would people complain about job loss then? This could be a fruitful idea for a science fiction short story come to think of it.