this post was submitted on 23 Dec 2023

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The Atlantic: Nobody Knows What’s Happening Online Anymore. Why you’ve probably never heard of the most popular Netflix show in the world. (archive.ph)

submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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The Atlantic: Nobody Knows What’s Happening Online Anymore. Why you’ve probably never heard of the most popular Netflix show in the world.::undefined

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[–] [email protected] 124 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (5 children)

An insightful thought from a TV critic I read years ago just as streaming was taking off :

There’s no such thing as the best TV show anymore, because there’s so much that’s generally good enough to be a candidate that no one person has watched it all and spent the time to assess it properly.

More broadly, this had happened to western culture with the internet. Previously, with only three tv channels and two major papers, we were all literally on the same page.

I’d go further and say there’s a vertical dimension too in terms of complexity. Society and its various aspects such as technology are now complex enough in total they I don’t think anyone can ever say they understand what’s going on.

[–] [email protected] 44 points 10 months ago (3 children)

One of the worst catalysts of this is when channels started dropping entire seasons of shows at once online to appease le epic binge watching culture. But when everyone watches something new like that at once, there's no time to actually appreciate anything or discuss the story or build anticipation, it just gets burned through and forgotten within 2 weeks.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 months ago

It does still allow for catch-up at the end of the run though. I prefer to binge watch, but now I wait a few months for it all to be released and then watch it. Which still doesn't allow for week to week discussion, but fits my watching patterns better.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago

Don't know about you but I have no interest in discussing TV shows with anyone. They're for my personal enjoyment.

And I absolutely loathe being left on a cliffhanger every week and then having to remember to go back and check every Tuesday or whatever. Most often what happens is that I forget about or lose interest in the show entirely.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Yea for sure.

I think that whole thing of dropping whole seasons and how it’s kinda faded somewhat is an interesting case study of this particular internet culture moment.

Where we think we want more and faster but have lost sight that that’s just a dumb dopamine mentality left unbalanced and unmitigated and that we actually prefer more traditional forms of various things.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago (3 children)

At the same time look at novels, when one comes out it doesn't get released one 10 pages chapter at a time...

[–] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Sometimes they do. Dickens and Tolstoy wrote and published serially. So do an awful lot of fanfic writers in the present day.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

And then there was the weekly Dracula thing popular on Tumblr a few years ago where they take a non serialized novel (as far as I know) and split it up based on the dates of the correspondence within, going a level further than serialization and delivering the story "real time" as the letters and newspapers were sent/published in the story.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago

Serial writing used to be a big thing, and even today there's a reason for the popularity of fanfics and webnovels. Hell, remember Homestuck?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

True. But then reading is probably a more self-limiting format than film/tv. At least for most people.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (3 children)

The only reason they've gone back to slow drip releases is to milk your engagement and subscription.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I use the phrase “societal decoheshion” to describe that. We (whoever that may be) just aren’t all that unified enough in our culture or information sources anymore.

Even just since Reddit became dead to us, my wife (who I met through Reddit) and I went to different platforms, and find ourselves often catching each other up on what our respective corners of the internet are doing.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 10 months ago (1 children)

There are tons of young millionaire youtubers who I've never heard of. It's pretty cool actually that there are so many niches to fill.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 10 months ago (1 children)

And plenty of poor low-subscriber channels that are actually really good and could blow up at some point.

I’ve certainly watched some people from before they were big and from memory their content was more or less just as good in the “early” days. Which all up makes for a pile of stuff!

[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (7 children)

And plenty of poor low-subscriber channels that are actually really good and could blow up at some point.

Probably doing stupid things like posting with useful titles and thumbnails without agape mouths...

That seems to be the only kind of trash content that Google is interested in pushing these days.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (5 children)

I can't remember what channel, but somebody did an experiment with not doing the ridiculous thumbnails and got way fewer views. Which sort of gets at the point of this article: the are huge swaths of people that are clicking on them and that sounds super foreign to a lot of us.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

That seems to be the only kind of trash content that Google is interested in pushing these days.

Youtube "pushes" whatever gets more views and longer watch time.

If trashy crap is being suggested, that means other people are watching it in increased numbers.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

Youtube "pushes" whatever gets more views and longer watch time.

No YouTube pushes what people will click on. They don't care about the quality of the content, whether the people who watch it actually enjoy it (dislike = "engagement"), or what kind of content people are actually subscribed to because the ads come first.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I do, I learned everything on Facebook. AMA

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago

What is in the vaccine Uncle Jerry?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

There IS a best TV show and it’s Six Feet Under and it’s perfect and the ending makes me cri every time and I will FIGHT ANYONE WHO DISAGREES

But srsly it’s a 10/10

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

My wife and I just finished the finale tonight, and it was a great ending. Very little ambiguity, real closure, and an emotionally appropriate song.

But, I think it is far from "the best TV show". It may have been "the best" for a TV drama when it came out because it was groundbreaking, but the acting and writing at times could be pretty bad (so many dropped plots with no follow-up or consequences). It also went on for far too long, which was a consequence of having to create 12 episodes per season, each the same length.

It's worth watching, but I'd give it a 7.8/10.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

That’s entirely fair. I watched it for the first time a decade (decades?) after it some out and it really struck a chord with me.

Then I began to date someone who is a funeral director and they didn’t know of its existence. I introduced them to it after having it be the first show I actually cried at and we both cried. So I have an emotional bias.

I still 10/10 it (and I’m harsh on movies and shows) because of my subjective experience.

Quick edit: I would love to know what show you would rate better. Not in an antagonistic sense, I am fully open to other opinions and I know mine is not THE CORRECT one. It’s just the show that hit me the hardest and that was before I was married to (or knew) my funeral director/mortician. Five years before.

Other edit : the worst dropped plot in the best show was The Sopranos rape plot. They just kinda.. didn’t do anything with it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

Also following because I like good recommendations. I don't know if I have one that I would necessarily rate 10/10 as the best show ever, but the first show that honestly had me cry/feel real feelings was Scrubs. And while it's up there, I still don't think I'd give it 10/10 myself.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Edit: I can't believe I forgot Baskets. That show is a masterpiece.

There are a few shows I'd rate higher: Breaking Bad (although it had it's share of 'throw away' episodes), Reservation Dogs, Battlestar Galactica (so many throw away episodes), The Newsroom, and Deadwood. I think Deadwood would be my highest ranking, especially for writing and acting.

Obviously I'm sure plenty of examples can be given for why Six Feet Under is better than each of the shows I've listed, but that's the beauty of subjective lists!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Breaking Bad was fucking stellar but there’s a couple shows I’d put higher—definitely The Sopranos, even though it took me maaaany years to get around to watching it! I followed breaking bad as it came out and loved it but I’ve yet to find a show that is as interesting as/hits me as hard as SixFunder.

I tried to watch deadwood and BSG and just couldn’t get into them. Maybe I give Deadwood another go!

[–] [email protected] 56 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I'm pretty happy here in our corner of Lemmy. Why would I want to know what's going everywhere on the internet all at once?

[–] [email protected] 20 points 10 months ago (2 children)

This.

Lemmy isn't at mass growth yet. So right now - it's nice to NOT see every stupid story about some no-name political guy say something stupid. Or NOT hear about some rage bait game pissing people off. Or NOT know about a shitty conglomerate is continuing being shitty.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago (1 children)

To be honest the feeling isn't like reddit of old, a lot of the people who have come here are the type finding pride in being on the outside and there's a lot of arrogance and pride with people on here for being the ones to move here.

I think they feel superior because they're over here and not reddit but reddit used to have brilliant long form discussions I'm just not seeing here. Granted reddit itself has way worse content now is definitely worse than lemmy, but we haven't captured what we lost.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Wait, you're not seeing those posts? Because you just described like a third of all Lemmy posts that come across my screen.

[–] [email protected] 54 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

Netflix’s single most popular anything from January and June 2023 was a recent thriller series called The Night Agent, which was streamed for 812 million hours globally.

Saved you a click.

And The Night Agent was a fantastic show. You should go watch it.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Was it? It was fine -- that thing you throw on because you've watched most of everything else that fills that kind of derivative political action conspiracy thriller. Not particularly intelligent, not particularly funny, a loose enough plot that you can be paying attention once every 5 minutes and get by. Some folks get shot. There's a conspiracy ooooOOOOoooh.

Maybe that's what defines good these days, when content is just a glut of mediocrity.

I was shocked it was up top the list in terms of 'quality,' but I watched it because, it was there... So, I guess that explains it?

The Recruit (similar vein) was a superior show in terms of quality. Recommend that if you need a quick fix.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

AAA quality is wanting these days. I just got done watching Rebel Moon. Apparently a $166m budget movie. Completely devoid of anything resembling a story or characters.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Ehh, it really wasn't. But I also couldn't get into Squid Game either. I'm sure they are fine, but nothing I haven't seen plenty of times over.

[–] [email protected] 44 points 10 months ago (1 children)

This might explain why meta wants to join the fediverse.

A shift away from a knowable internet might feel like a return to something smaller and purer. An internet with no discernable monoculture may feel, especially to those who’ve been continuously plugged into trending topics and viral culture, like a relief. But this new era of the internet is also one that entrenches tech giants and any forthcoming emergent platforms as the sole gatekeepers when it comes to tracking the way that information travels. We already know them to be unreliable narrators and poor stewards, but on a fragmented internet, where recommendation algorithms beat out the older follower model, we rely on these corporations to give us a sense of scale.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 10 months ago (1 children)

But I have heard of Stranger Things!

[–] [email protected] 22 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The Night Agent is the most watched Netflix show they're talking about

[–] [email protected] 40 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

Stealing this gif thanks 😁

[–] [email protected] 23 points 10 months ago (4 children)

I don't know how many are like me who almost doesn't watch tv shows at all. I tried to watch a few but at best it's quite mediocre to me compared to a good movie, and they are too long for my like. Nowadays I only watch movies, or read books, besides playing games. I don't know how much I'm considered a weirdo today for not watching tv shows at all.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago

Where as I'm the converse, all I watch is tv these days. Will watch 10 movies a year, if that. I long the longer and stronger connection I can form with the characters over a tv season. And I did they can tell more elaborate stories with the longer time compared to a movie. Different strokes for different folks though.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

Don't worry, I watch neither TV shows nor movies. I would just rather do something else with my time, like programming stuff, learning something new, and playing video games. If I am stuck with nothing to do I will watch something on YouTube. I think I would rather watch content made by real people instead of studios if that make sense.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

By myself I never really watch TV shows for the same reasons you mentioned but with my wife we watch an episode of something for dinner. Shows like chernobyl or the wire were really good and I'm glad I watched them but there are a lot of shows that just don't end and they get old quick

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Yeah I haven't watched a show in so long. There's some I know I'd like but don't care enough to get engaged, it's the same with a lot of movies. I find the way a lot of characters are portrayed I have no connection with and feel like I'm watching these weird uncanny valley versions of people.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago

Thanks for posting the archived version. I ran across this story recently and hit a paywall right after the article mentioned the problem with paywalls.

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