The Things We Put Up With
Money does kind of ruin culture.
Let me explain.
If something makes money reliably, we see more of it. That something makes money is usually an indication of quality: if car manufacturers didn’t make money, they’d stop making cars, after all. Or they’d stop with certain features or models. There are reasons you don’t see some cars that you used to anymore: they’re not profitable. And if they’re not profitable, that usually means people aren’t buying them, and the company that insists on producing them will soon be out of business.
A lot of this sounds better and works cleaner in theory than practice, but with tangible, physical good, the praxis tends to play out more or less as expected. I think cars are a good example of this–enough people bought Teslas in the early stages in steadily increasing numbers to make Elon Musk eat the loss and keep refining his product instead of pulling the plug on the whole electric car endeavor. Products that survive are good enough at their function–perhaps great–to survive.
People still play Fender guitars and basses for a reason: they sound, feel, and look good. Ditto the Gibson Les Paul. I’m sure you can think of other examples of timeless classics that deserve their reputation and longevity. The great thing about such longevity is that the makers have the financial insulation to innovate both radically and around the edges, pushing their technology forward while still performing their core competence well.
These principles seem to work everywhere except in consumer technology and entertainment. I’ll stick to the latter, though, since it is more in my wheelhouse.
We see this hundreds of times in books, music, movies, video games, and TV shows: something makes money, so every other company races to get a similar product to market to snap up the dollars that are waiting there. Remember the glut of Young Adult novels, particularly dystopias, once The Hunger Games became a big hit? How about vampire-themed urban fantasy/romance after Twilight? Go back further and you’ll see kid-oriented fantasy a la Harry Potter everywhere.
Music is another obvious example where we see endless bands of the same genre pop up at the same time. It didn’t just start with rap-rock and nu-metal, or emo, or even grunge. It goes back to the days of the British Invasion where marginal bands that sounded a little bit like the Beatles or the Rolling Stones were given deals and foisted onto the public. Some, like the Kinks and the Who, were more than worthy of the attention they never would have gotten otherwise, but plenty of others are not remembered because they weren’t that great.
Movies are a similarly good example. It’s been all superhero stuff from 2008 until now, and will likely continue despite the diminishing quality. And check out video games: endless first-person shooters and hand-holding “open world” RPGs that don’t do anything particularly well, in addition to remakes and remasters of past glories, not to mention sequel after sequel that really don’t offer anything new.
So what’s the difference between pop culture and the car example I used earlier? It’s that people still keep paying for entertainment.
It’s like a drug. It’s like, if people don’t get the latest version of the thing they already have, they’ll go bonkers and won’t know what to do with themselves. I can’t understand it, especially among people who complain about it. If you like what’s coming out, great! Keep buying it and I sincerely hope you enjoy yourself, and that is said with no sarcasm whatsoever. But if you’re going to complain about Laser Sword Movie Franchise or Hooded Assassin Video Game Franchise, but keep buying it and talking about it, what’s the rationale behind that?
The rules of economic behavior break down when it comes to pop culture, and I think I know why: unlike a car or a toaster oven or a water heater, entertainment is psychologically designed to tickle and caress the pleasure centers of the consumers’ brain. Further, art is a powerful thing that will affect you mentally, spiritually, and even physically . . . whether or not it’s good and whether or not you like it.
Art is a craft, but it has an element above and beyond that recliner in your living room or the toothbrush you scrub your pearly whites with in the morning and at night (you are brushing twice a day, aren’t you?). Art is weaponized against populations as a form of propaganda, the most effective form, in fact. If you can get people singing along to a catchy pop song with reprehensible, subversive, degenerate lyrics, there’s no telling what else they’ll accept because they’re already literally mouthing your message. If people watch movies filled with violence, depravity, sex, and other dyscivic messaging–and pay money for the privilege–you have them by the proverbial short and curlies, ready for further programming.
Art is power. Those who produce mass art for mass consumption know this. They know you’ll continue paying for it even if you think it’s all garbage. How many people have actually canceled all streaming services, cable, and have stopped watching professional sports due to “wokeness”? I doubt many. “Get woke, go broke” is, as has been said, the biggest cope around because not only are the gigantic entertainment conglomerates propped up by endlessly deep pockets, not only is actually making money not their chief concern, they also are full of talented people, like it or not, who often enough, whether consciously or by accident, produce fantastic product that many use to justify their continued support.
But that’s like saying, “My car’s brakes work 50 percent of the time, and when they work they work great, so I might as well keep this car.”
Pictured: Your favorite franchise. Why do you pay for this?If audiences started behaving the way economic theory predicts they should, the whole edifice would crumble. I have no practical guide as to how to make this happen. I just want to get people thinking about this phenomenon.
