It’s interesting how far the world of mass media consumption has come. Only a hundred years ago, if you wanted to be entertained, you had to dress up and go to the town theater to watch some kind of performance, typically including some singing, dancing and maybe some vaudevillian theater. Then, radio came along and although it wasn’t the same visual experience as theater, you could listen to stories in the comfort of your living room, or parlor as it was probably known in those days. This was a marvelous technical invention as it allowed listeners to create scenes in their own minds drawn from the sketches of audio only broadcasts. The apex of influence of this medium was probably HG Well’s 1938 broadcast of The War Of The Worlds when people were led to believe that a Martian attack was under way.
But when Television came along after WW2, entertainment made another great leap forward. No longer did people have to suffice with just audio, or with silent films at the movie theater, you could have voice and video in your own home. However, the technology was still ahead of the content and despite classic pioneering shows including Milton Berle and Lucille Ball, most of the early offerings were rather banal. Why? Well apparently most talented writers were working on real entertainment; Broadway plays and motion pictures.
But as in all things, the ability to make money from this new medium spawned an explosion in the amount and quality of content available on the small screen in the years to come. Thus advertisers willing to pay to hawk their goods drew people into the business of putting out popular content. During this time, the output of content fell to 3 major broadcasters who had a monopoly on all kinds of entertainment including news and sports.
This was pretty much the model for another 30 years until a guy named Ted Turner decided that audiences were willing to accept partitioned and specialized entertainment, thus heralding cable channels with narrow, specific fields of interest. This shrunk the audience and influence of the big 3 networks. To this day, you can still find a midget basket weaving channel or similar on your two hundred channel cable guide. The next evolution was streaming. This is essentially the same as cable channels except that you pay extra for ‘premium content’. It’s like Only Fans, but non pornographic. This caters to people who want to control their entertainment and on their schedules. It also contributed to the phenomenon of binge watching.
But the real 800 pound gorilla of entertainment today is Social media: Instagram posts, Tik-Tok videos. To the degree that most everyone on earth is able to have access to a mobile phone, they are also all consumers of Instagram or Tik Tok videos. These are the platforms of our time. They are comprised of very short clips on any given topic. For good or bad, these platforms truly shrink the expanse of the planet. Unlike the history of entertainment which has always been in the hands of the few, now EVERYONE is a content creator and the audience is truly vast. Unlike all other avenues of entertainment, there are no boundaries for content, nor for that matter, taste. But these are not purely artistic and expressive works; these short videos are all now made with commercial intent. As some may know, there are entire ‘farms’ in China which produce only short social media content for commercial use.
As with TV a couple of generations ago, everyone is looking for a way to capitalize on people’s appetite for amusement. Grand oeuvres won’t be found here, but you will find mostly themes of humor or prurience. And it’s lucrative. If somehow you are able to catch lightning in a bottle and acquire millions of view, you would be an internet sensation and all these views translates into real cash. These ‘influencers’ make thousands or hundreds of thousands depending on the volume of clicks. They will benefit from affiliate marketing and branding. Some of the top influencers are Cristiana Ronaldo and of course the Kardashians. But even below that tier, many content makers can make very comfortable livings by simply putting out banal things and often simply following established formulas for content. Who hasn’t scrolled through cute animal videos or food recipes?
Interestingly, the audience and sweet spot for marketing is and always has been to teenagers, both boys and girls as indicated by the people with the largest audiences. But it’s also a powerful marketing tool for the entire spectrum of ages and there are probably no businesses today that don’t have a social media presence. Thus influential media has moved away from the gatekeepers of the past. Now, anyone with a phone can influence the minds of millions as if they were stars. This is a great egalitarian platform. So instead of professionals, people are essentially entertaining themselves! But while this platform can reveal great minds when they otherwise would never have had the opportunity, something tells me it’s more like water…which always finds its lowest level.