Movie-Theater Behavior Has Gone Off the Reels

Sounds like partial blame can be assigned to head empty smooth brain tiktok clout-seekers who don't _usually_ go to the movies, but are going en masse because TT, same thing with the grimace shake BS.

Gen z doesn't understand how fucking easy it is to market to them - all Macca's had to do is seed a tiktok meme where you drink a grimace shake and then something terrible happens and BAM, tens of thousands of sales or more just bc these people want to post "their version" of the same damn thing to their TT. Let alone half of TT just seems to be "look this things looks cool buy it buy it".

As the article points out things like this (at concerts etc too) have been on the rise but I would find it interesting to determine what the main source of it is. I think it's the same poison as Vine (on which people also did stupid "prank" stuff for clout) but TT seems to have a much larger audience than Vine ever did.

But I think TT is just magnifying a larger, more human problem: there are some on TT that denounce the bad behaviour, but the majority of people seem to be like "ha ha is funi" when watching a video of some TT'er walking up to someone and assaulting them "it's just a prank bro". Ugh.

It’s not just movie theatres, it’s just what makes in noticeable.

The sub-minute endorphin loops that the attention economy has created have created a subclass of dependent people that are incapable of feeling well without constant interaction with their devices.

It’s addiction in its most classical presentation. We have effectively removed a huge slice of the population from the pool of potentially productive thought in favor of candy crush and ads.

Unfortunately, those people, though they now contribute less than they otherwise would to a functioning society, still consume the same (or even more) resources.

This is one of the many externalised costs of the attention economy and we are all poorer for it.

We should consider the option to liquidate companies that derive their profits from the erosion of cultural resources and at the cost public well being.

The health, societal, and socioeconomic implications of tight endorphin loops are well known, yet we continue to tolerate the pushers, saying it’s the parents or the individuals responsibility (it is, but still, should we tolerate companies that seek to do harm to people for profit?)

Tips for avoiding this that have worked for me:

Go early in the morning. The 10:00 am Sunday showing of Oppenheimer is likely full of movie buffs.

Go midweek. An emptier theater reduces the impact of phone screens if someone uses one.

Go to nicer theaters with higher numbers of staff.

Go to niche theaters. The non-profit place with the weird snacks is likely filled with movie buffs.

Go to classic movies you missed the first time around.

Could be all sorts of reasons:

- Fewer people are going to movies, so the people which are left hold different preferences

- Changing demographics

- potentially just a youth culture thing. I don't know what young people are up to these days, but _more_ phone use in inappropriate situations certainly doesn't sound surprising

Question for frequent movie-goers: is this a trend in general, or just an artifact of Barbenheimer being a social media phenomenon? (All of the anecdotes in the article come from the two movies)

The evidence given that it is a trend, pre-show prods to turn off your phone, feels like it has been happening as long as personal cell phones were a thing.

I have found a theater near me that disallows entry to anybody under 21. It was quieter, do recommend checking one out.

I don't think it's a problem with young people, I think it's caused by the customer-first mentality (and also reducing labor), which makes theaters reluctant to throw out misbehaving people, and also allow them to bring food. In other words, it's done for profit, so it's something WSJ should celebrate.

I loved going to the movies during COVID when they were finally allowed to open.

Two empty seats to both sides, one empty row in front and back.

Zero groups of teenagers or loud people, just movie buffs or people who want to watch a movie in peace.

That’s why you should see movies at Alamo.

I think I'm the odd one out here. I like it a lot more when the rest of the audience is interacting with the movie, heckling, shouting, laughing, etc.

Yeah, sitting on your loud phone and not watching the movie is just strange, of course.

But when everyone else is engaged with the movie, it's a better experience to me.

it is annoying and has been for a while. wouldn't even consider visiting a movie during opening week or anything even remotely mainstream. but even then you can have bad luck. i'm super easily offended by disrespectful behavior. for a while i vaped some (very small amount of) weed. that would sedate me comfortably and i wouldn't care about the plebs. also made a lot of movies more interesting. same with concerts. it's unbelievably annoying to have a majority of the audience filming with screen on full brightness - many people don't even seem to know you can dim the display. but even with my sensitivities you can still go to the movies or concerts - but you have to be a bit more selective about when and where.

This is why I have stopped going to theaters and wait to either pirate the movie or buy it on iTunes.

If you go to youth oriented movies in the release day, you're just asking for this kind of experience.

I wrote a Tweet[0] once to cover this as well. Didn't quite get the reach the wsj has, but at least I felt better.

[0] https://twitter.com/robertlagrant/status/609373147310256128

Vibrant theater-goers?

> “The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.” -Socrates

This isn’t a new problem. Every generation believes the next generation is shite.

I rather have phones in a movie than popcorn. Having people next to you stuffing their faces with smelly greasy popcorn is the most disgusting and annoying behavior in a theater. The smell, the sound of the bag, the chewing and the licking of the greasy fingers, nothing is better at ruining a movie than that.