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Comment by PrimeMcFly | Hacker News Reader

> Every single movie or TV show is bad these days. v

Well that's patently ridiculous. Maybe you've just matured and have better ways to spend your time?

Nope, this is a very common thought these days. Many of my friends are watching media from the 90's to early 2010s, and I've been doing the same.

I can only guess why:

- More focus on content instead of message

- Less political restriction on content compared to today

And this includes friends across the political spectrum.

It might be a common thought, but it's a goofy thought. There is plenty of content that is modern and has a focus on content, and 'less political restriction' isn't an issue unless you have shitty views.

Or...perhaps they better relate to the messages of those periods?

I don't enjoy today's politics, either. But art and entertainment was never really politics-free.

I would say I really miss filler episodes that were the norm for genuine TV shows, every damn series is a fucking miniseries these days with zero fat and it just doesn't let the writers do any kind of proper worldbuilding anymore because there's no time for it.

Great point. Declining attention spans (or the perception of it / catering to these audiences) has borked the pacing.

Watch an action movie from the 90s: they're _slow_ by today's standards, but if we stick to it with no distractions, it greatly adds to the viewing experience.

This is great for building worlds and charismatic characters.

I remember a lot of adults in the mid 90's primarily watching reruns from 70's and 80's. The main factor is nostalgia, not some inherent flaw in modern shows.

Exactly.

There is a change, similar to how streaming has changed pop music. Current tv/film is much less suspenseful, much more boring and less funny, due to a perception that audiances are fickle, that they are not comitted and will too easily switch to another stream. And producers are working too hard not to offend paticularly sensitive audiences, those ready to start twitter wars over the slightest issue. It all adds up to dull entertainment.

What is "current tv"? How are you measuring "suspense"?

Suspense does necessarily mean cliffhangers. The time between a joke start and punchline is getting shorter. Look at Friends or early BigBangTheory, not the highest calibre of entertainment but they had many jokes that were setup over seasons. That isnt a thing anymore. Everything must be packaged up in a single scene. Modern shows are just dull, taking forever for anything to happen due to all the re-explaining (Mandalorian). That isnt suspenseful, just slow.

These differences are in your head. If they are not, they are the result of TV evolving as it always does, but it hasn't been a negative evolution by any stretch of the imagination.

To agree with the sentiment "there are no good TV shows anymore" is pure nonsense.

There is no change, and streaming hasn't changed pop. Taylor Swift is no different from her equivalent 20 years ago.

There is just significantly more content, and so people draw incomplete conclusions and make assumptions. Nothing new.

Swift is actually fighting the trend. For instance, many of her tracks start with a second or two of silence, something considered very bad form these days. When you are at the top you are above many rules.

I thought more access and more options to video content would make TV and film better. Absolutely not. They replaced the CURATED video rental store with nothing, and now content that never earned a minute of air time is placed center stage and it's awful. It's not even indie film bad. It's just very bad like the committee who made it spent a few hours discussing and here you go. The title and thumbnail are the entire movie.

I'm not one to long for years past, but quality has been taken over by quantity many leagues over.

You clearly don't know where to look. There is more content being made than ever before. And plenty of it is fantastic, on par or better than what came before.

The answer here is not that modern content is worse, simply that you need to expand your horizons and maybe stop judging stuff and dismissing it.

I honestly don't remember the last time i was excited to go to the movies. Least time i went was to see Saint seya, which i love as a kid and although it was a bad movie it gave me a little bit of nostalgia.

Few years back i was an avid user of YIFI (yts), to the point that i even made a front end to it. I don't think i liked the piracy aspect of it, the thing for me was the catalog. Lots and lots of indie titles.

I think a combination of bad titles, spread across multiple streaming services made me quit the whole thing.

I now watch YouTube and play some Xbox on my spare time.

If you can torrent there is no point to YIFI - the catalog of available torrents has everything they have and more.

That aside though, there are still plenty of good titles. More than ever. People just have no clue where to look or want more of the stuff they liked 20 years ago I guess.

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