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Comment by fullshark | Hacker News Reader

My theory is that Movies are not the dominant cultural force for the younger generation. Their celebrity idols are on social media ( and musicians but nothing new there).

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Anthony Mackie on why Hollywood movies are of poor quality and why there are no movie stars anymore: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oj8JK6c5x3M

The no movie stars thing was interesting. I was thinking about Chris Pratt who seems like one of the most recently created "superstars"(as in he's a lot of big movies) and yet he doesn't feel like a brand the way Cruise or Schwarzenegger or Aniston do.

Not buying it. Holland & Zendaya are just as popular as Pitt & Aniston was in the 90s.

Prove it. Let's look at some data:

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=%2Fm%2F0...

Even from 2004, when Brad Pitt was arguably less popular than in the 1990s, we can see that Tom Holland has never reached the same 'peaks' that Brad Pitt had reached. Tom Holland blew up in December 2021 (though never reaching two of Pitt's peaks), and is now down to a level of interest lower than Brad Pitt is today.

Similar for Zendaya vs. Jennifer Aniston: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=%2Fm%2F0...

If we average out the 2021 popularity for Zendaya/Holland, and average out the 2004 popularity for Pitt/Aniston, then Pitt/Aniston dominate.

The data is slightly tangential, and so it's not conclusive, but it basically suggests that you're mistaken.

Counterpoint: young people are spending more time searching within apps like TikTok/IG/Twitter, and not using Google at all

This is a great counterpoint! Sadly, I've been unable to find any data on whether young people use Google less. Do you know of any indication of this?

Funny timing on this, here's Google confirming it: https://techcrunch.com/2022/07/12/google-exec-suggests-insta...

As an anecdote of one I know who Pitt & Aniston are but not Holland or Zendaya

Same, but I'm in my late 40s so maybe that's expected.

Yea, but compare apples to apples. Go back to the 90's and everyone from all age ranges knows who Pitt and Aniston are. I assume the only people who know who Holland and Zendaya are are much younger than us (I'd need to Google them as well--haven't a clue who they are).

I’m old and don’t follow celebrities either, but this couple starred in one of the highest grossing films of all time last year.

Watched this. Very interesting

A friend's indie band entered a hiatus after a disappointing tour across the northeast (OH, PA, NJ, NY, MA, ME). Simply put, they all realized it isn't enough to be talented musicians, they need to learn how to be better entertainers (which is increasingly synonymous with influencers)

This isn't new.

There's a reason Bruce Springsteen is huge, and it isn't because he can sing.

1) That hugely underestimates his ability as a songwriter. Springsteen, as a songwriter, is on par with people like Bacharach, in my opinion.

2) The traditional record company system pumped an ENORMOUS amount of money behind him to market him initially. So much so that he is embarassed about it to this day.

3) The E Street Band were some of the absolute best musicians around. The old joke about "Man, I don't know who Bruce Springsteen is, but he must be amazing. He has Clarence Clemons playing triangle in his band."

Perhaps Jimmy Buffett is an example of someone who created a successful brand/following on top of modestly successful music.

That's interesting. Can you expand on it? What does Springsteen do as a influencer?

I'd say that guy was honing in on "entertainer" - Springsteen is a much better performer and entertainer than he is a songwriter or musician generally. The man's still performing incredible 3 hour shows at 72 years old.

I'm not aware of him doing any social media influencing - he had earned his reputation long before social media.

Born in the USA (1984) is one of the best selling albums of all time, something like 30 million copies. You can say it's touring, but I say that album is the thing that made him huge.

And it wasn't just album sales. At the time it was also constantly on radio and MTV (back when MTV played music).

I'd say he's a very good song writer, average (professional) singer, great entertainer.

His Broadway show (currently on Netflix) is deeply inciteful and demonstrative of his path, and his skill as an entertainer.

It's harder to break out now with everyone one and their friend having a youtube channel, but don't underestimate the amount of work it took for Bruce to breakout in the early 70s. It was ever thus for entertainers, thousands aspire and only a very few make it.

True but I also think he says a lot with his lyrics. He speaks to people.

He can growl though.

> Simply put, they all realized it isn't enough to be talented musicians

Has it ever been?

Those 40 and up only account for 30% of ticket sales [1], despite being nearly 50% of the population. This is a figure I find rather shocking given that these ages include those with children and those with an abundance of time in retirement.

Another factor may be the skyrocketing costs of movie tickets. This source [2] shows that tickets went from $4.35 in 1996 to $9.16 in 2021, which exceeds the rate of inflation. Additionally, I'm not aware of any tickets to be had for $9. Tickets are exorbitantly expensive these days [3].

[1] https://www.mekkographics.com/american-moviegoers-by-age-and...

[2] https://247wallst.com/media/2021/03/29/this-is-the-price-of-...

[3] The price for one ticket to Jurassic World tonight at a theater near to me is $18.84. This is in "2D" on a standard screen.

> This is a figure I find rather shocking given that these ages include those with children

That should actually explain it.

My wife and I used to see a movie or two every weekend. Then we had kids seven years ago. I think I've been to the theater maybe four times since then (and two of those were without my wife).

That is really interesting. In my town, to see Jurassic World tomorrow (Wed) at 20:30 in the UK is £13 per adult. This includes a mostly empty cinema, a terrible seat, 10-20 minutes of adverts for viewing start time and £6 for a large pepsi max.

So minus the pepsi, it is $31.09USD for 2 adults.

Even if I reached out to my admittedly few dozen facebook family from 16-90 year old and said I sorted all them out for $1 a film. No one would go. I mean maybe 1-2 people would go but even then I'd be mind blown.

I thought UK cinema tickets actually dropped in price quite a bit recently. As a counterexample, still in a small city in the UK, Vue has seats today for 'The Rise of Gru' for £7 per seat - in a nice venue with reclining seats. And you can bring popcorn from the next-door supermarket for £2 per bag. The only downside is that you would have to watch 'The Rise of Gru'...

Hollywood is churning out Transformers, Marvel, and Fast & Furious movies by the dozen. I don’t think this really appeals to most people over a certain age.

The video game industry is also larger than all other major entertainment media industries (film/television/music) combined, so there’s that to compete with.

I am on IG since a few weeks meeting a lot of new people. Based on those experiences, I feel you’re completely right.

I could only wonder about the tiktok world but that is a step too far for me

I just saw that a TikTok trend involves filming your friends going out to see the new minions movie in suits:

https://www.distractify.com/p/minions-movie-tiktok-trend

It’s getting some credit for a ticket sale bump. I wonder if the joke for some kids isn’t just that the minions are lame but movies as a whole are lame?

I just think it's a cyclical response to life becoming increasingly casual. In my public high school (~2005), we started doing "Formal Fridays" where we would dress up in suits. It was just a dumb, ironic fad that spanned multiple cliques and essentially went viral. At its peak, one enterprising friend bought a gross of hideous yellow-and-black "swiss cheese ties" and started selling them. Teachers were extremely concerned that it was some sort of gang/hidden meaning thing...

But I digress. Altogether, I think it's good for the industry that kids are gathering at movie theaters again and doing things like this that make memories.

It’s Morbin’ Time (Morbius) was a similar recent joke where the comedy came from pretending a bad movie was good.

I recall reading that was a TikTok scheme created by a marketing agency for the opening of the movie in the Israeli market.

And yes, it helped drive a better opening weekend than was normally projected.

Compare the annual gross sales of video games vs. Hollywood blockbusters. Yet gaming is given short shrift.

My kids are all on their phones watching tiktok and youtube. They were traumatized when a prominent YouTuber died this weekend of cancer.

Movies? They used to be into the MCU when it was relatively fresh, but now it's stale, like Harry Potter. My youngest went to see TopGun Maverick with me, but wanted to spend time with me more than seeing an old boomer movie retread.

Gaming seems to get the same sort of short shrift as sports. Which is to say, they're competing for entertainment dollars, but not necessarily as much as cultural referents. And note that on HN you'll see much more discussion of movies than of sports... so it should be easy to see where that blind spot would be different (either opposite, or ignoring both areas).

It's an interesting thing because some games are much more narrative, and others are much more competition-oriented. The latter seem to be driving a lot of the current $$$$.

Youtube and social media exist in a new sort of advertising-dollar-pie-expanding competiting-but-also-newly-different genre of free content. And kids will eat that shit up since they aren't rolling in money for increasingly-expensive movies.

A lot of movie genres have basically just moved to cable and streaming. Funny that yesterday's "free" kids entertainment (cable, since parents were subscribed anyway) is today's paywalled streaming content.

Is Hollywood, by itself, threatened by Tiktok any more than it was by MTV? Between streaming and theatrical, Hollywood is doing great. The streaming bubble has to deflate some, though - it's been running at a loss for a decade - we'll see how big a hit that is.

It sort of makes sense that competitive games get more eyeballs than narrative ones, right? Most single player, narrative focused games are designed to be beaten, anyone interested in enjoying those plots can get that experience on their own. Most of us can't get the experience of being good at DOTA or whatever it is people watch nowadays.

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