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Comment by thweryo234 | Hacker News Reader

Hardly surprising. The world is turning American, in culture, in religion, and worldviews, despite supposed political rivalry and "traditional heritage".

There is no Japan, no China, no India, no Europe. We have US with varying flavors around the world in essence - atleast if not for the plebs, certainly in the elites (who tend to be self-replicating).

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This is incredibly sad to be honest. I love the interconnectivity of the modern web, and social media allows us to share our thoughts freely and communicate ideas at a scale never before seen in human history, but the consequence of this is the limitation on culture. It used to be the case that cultures developed in a silo'd fashion, and this gave way for some very advanced and different ways to doing things. When our ancestors visited a new location they would find new people with a completely different view of the world. Now everyone thinks the same, acts the same, the culture is the same. We've opened the box on shared thinking and the result is that we'll never have an era of silent cultivation on ideas - the mind virus is live.

That isn't quite accurate. Actual siloed cultures are downright stagnant. Advancements come from trade and cross connections. The closest thing you would see are parallel evolutions, which are often more geographically linked. Silent cultivation of ideas is also an oxymoronic notion - ideas grow from interactions.

Likewise their view of the world never was completely different nor those from within the same culture completely the same.

You're right of course - the Romans took from the Greeks, the Greeks took from the Egyptians, etc etc. Ideas adapt over time and cross cultures. Still, I can't help but have a romantic view of cultures, perhaps because up until this point it has taken centuries for ideas to develop and catch on, as our mediums weren't as efficient as what we have now. Prior to the printing press, it was hand art, and spoken word prevailed to tell stories and divulge ideas. Nowadays a single YouTube video has a thousand times more the impact. This is what we lose when we have mass medium like the modern era of the internet. I know it's naive thinking

Cross connections may matter less if the actual cultural differences tendd towards a monoculture… will be interesting to see how it plays out over the next millennia, but we won’t be here to know:)

If you ever tried to watch central europe tv, for example Czech and Slovak TV shows, then you would understand why people prefer American production. It is pure trash. With exception of couple Czech movies.

Well, to me American movie industry is dead. I can't name any good movie after 2010. It's extremely primitive now: no dialogs, just violence, giant explosions, and/or "diversity" that usually is extremely weird because it is unnatural and feels too forced.

E.g. I went to see the last Bond movie and slept the good portion of it. I never actually liked Bond movies, they're too shallow, but the last one was both shallow and dull.

I didn't spend my money to see the remake of Matrix - first comments from friends acknowledged what I suspected: it is a half-baked attempt to squeeze more money from the famous name without trying to make it interesting: why bother, when most of the audience will pay for the ticket anyway just because of the name.

European movies are bad only when they try to emulate Hollywood. Copying something that is already rotten, seldom results in good product. But sometimes there're pretty good European movies, when they don't try to copycat Hollywood.

Watching a movie from the James Bond series, expecting anything other than violence, giant explosions, and the absence of substantially gripping dialog - was probably your first mistake.

The James Bond series have all been popcorn flicks for decades - I'm not sure using this particular example solidifies your point at all.

> The James Bond series have all been popcorn flicks for decades - I'm not sure using this particular example solidifies your point at all.

Yes, indeed. I went to see the last Bond because I was tired from my job and I wanted to see road races and big explosions. To see something simple that doesn't require brains to process. But it ended up so boring, that I've slept in an uncomfortable (for sleeping) cinema chair.

> no dialogs, just violence, giant explosions, and/or "diversity" that usually is extremely weird because it is unnatural and feels too forced

I mean a lot of them are. But, come on, there have been a lot of great movies and TV series since 2010. Maybe where you are living only imports block busters.

> Maybe where you are living only imports block busters.

I'm talking mostly about movies that you can see in movie theaters where I live. There are probably good movies, but they are not demonstrated in movie theaters and it's hard to know about them.

I think the creative American video content now comes out of "TV". Saying TV in a very loose sense, as most of this serialized long form content is consumed through apps now instead of traditional broadcast or cable television.

Is this because of budget? Or because of writing or the themes are not commercial enough?

How many really good movies or show were created in 2021 and how many average ones, how many of those good movies or shows are based on some book/novel/script by an non american writer? US might just have the money to push a giant steam of productions and eventually you get a few good stuff in a giant pile of garbage or mediocrity.

In a small nation with limited cultural outreach, the only way to make a return on the investment is to target the largest demographic group - 50-70 year olds, high-school educated - with low-brow, casual, anodyne content. Trying to fill any other niche is a commercial suicide. If you're not a part of that demographic group - tough luck, there's nothing on the domestic market for you. To make matters worse, the talent pool is really shallow, leading to the same clique of ~20 actors in literally every single film or TV show

Can't speak of current productions, but as an austrian I have only the fondest memories of the old czechoslovakian kids shows & movies!

Heck, Pan Tau still gets reruns on german tv from time to time.

> With exception of couple Czech movies.

Which ones?

I am glad this is still kinda wrong and afraid that there is more truth to it than I can see.

However in central Europe the US influence to TV and culture did only get less in the recent, troublesome, years. At least from my POV

+1 In India, at least some of the blame lies with the film industry. Having had a monopoly for so long, they were lax in saving prints of their movies and making them available on DVD (now streaming platforms). There is no Indian equivalent of the Criterion collection and this is really killing them. The internet and a lot of Gen-Z Indian kids have picked up all the "bollywoodrealism" material (which is easily memable) and ignore the treasure trove of films that India has produced.

Same with TV and film in Thailand.

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