Culture is Stuck

So much of of the existing music, film and TV culture — using 20th century technology — is cookie cutter, lifeless and uninspiring.

The democratization of the AI tools means even more people can pump out content, so context will matter more than ever in order to give meaning to the work.

Until the year 2000, about 25% of top-grossing movies were prequels, sequels, spinoffs, remakes, reboots, or cinematic universe expansions. Since 2010, it’s been over 50% ever year. In recent years, it’s been close to 100%.

The problem isn’t that the mean has decreased. It’s that the variance has shrunk. Movies, TV, music, books, and video games should expand our consciousness, jumpstart our imaginations, and introduce us to new worlds and stories and feelings. They should alienate us sometimes, or make us mad, or make us think. But they can’t do any of that if they o... See more

Nostalgia, as Mark Fisher predicted, has never been more potent. We can’t stop longing for the past – and increasingly, even the very recent past, via the “nowstalgia” of rapid-cycling trends – at the expense of creating something genuinely novel.

From a studio’s perspective, a sequel is a movie with a guaranteed fan base: a cash cow, a sure thing, an exploit. And an overload of sure things signals a short-termist approach, as with Stucchio on his way out of town. The sequels are more likely than brand-new movies to be hits this year, but where will the beloved franchises of the future come

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