Rise of the Geeks

Honestly, I don’t get the appeal of the midnight showing. It’s not like the movie is going to disappear the next day. It’s not like it’s a limited asset. It is a movie and it will be showing many, many, many times. Somehow, we’ve been convinced to treat films as if they are rare and valuable things and that seeing them first is some sort of worthy accomplishment.

It’s strange. Not because we like movies. But because we’ve all become nerds at this point. We live in a culture where obsessive devotion isn’t unique. It’s standard. It’s waiting in line eight hours to get a marginally improved version of a product we already have. It’s going into work exhausted because we had to see a Batman movie. It’s fantasy football, watching a whole season of a TV show in a day, etc., etc.

I don’t get it. If anything, this sort of obsessiveness seems like it should be less appealing. After all, you used to have to hunt for your obscure back issues, scrounge for recordings of your favorite TV shows, fight for every scrap of your personal obsession. Now, corporations have figured out you don’t need to make something rare to be treated as such. You merely have to act as if it is, and the rest will follow.

If anything, I’m the opposite at this point. I find myself less obsessive because when a marathon of my favorite show was on, it seemed like a rare treat. Now, if I want to watch 12 hours of Kolchak, all I do is turn on my Netflix streaming.  My favorite comic book stories are available in easy to find graphic novel collections. And every mainstream movie I want to see is just a five minute drive from my home.

I don’t know if it’s a good or a bad thing. It’s just a thing I don’t get.

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee