At 76 years of age, it's fair to say I'm entering the home stretch, but one thing I won't miss when I put my cue back in the rack is the complete bastardization of the entertainment models that have sustained me for seven decades.
Sorry about the delayed response. I have a Substack account, but I've not yet made use of it. If you liked my pool cue analogy, "called for the check" also works.
It's inevitable that someone(s) with a YouTube channel will do more for new music than record labels because labels would rather buy catalogues than develop and nourish new talent. And that will come at a cost to their influence which will decline.
The way that news and World affairs issues reach us has changed, and instead of coming through a few narrow funnels it showers onto us from all over the place. It’s a huge change and it’s changing things faster than we can keep up with. I used to laugh when my daughter would say “I saw it on TikTok”; I don’t anymore. Instead of sneering we need a good look in the mirror and repent for the way we gobbled down all the lies and manipulation from those “reputed news outlets”, building up public opinion for unjust wars and barbaric behaviour. How could we have been such an easy prey?
I hear ya; my whole life seems to have been reading news that had been reported by a low-level reporter who got vetted while hiring and her stories all got vetted by the suits, because news has always been a business and you don't report nasty stuff done by some subsidiary of a corporation that either owns your news outlet of spends a lot on ads there.
Still: opinion and "wouldn't it be cool if...?" stories are not news. Without even corporate news we no idea what's really going on in the world; with the "legacy" outlets at least we could get good at reading between the lines.
Absolutely! I used to take pride and even identify with my news outlets (BBC, The Guardian, El País - I’m in Spain - NYT…) and it turns out I was the muppet and my teenagers were getting closer to the truth on TikTok. Some things are changing for the better.
I guess it’ll make easier prey of those not willing to put any effort into even getting close to the complexities of what’s happening, but it does give those who make an effort direct access to different views of what’s actually happening. Until recently the educated relied on their media for the educated to form their opinion for them. And they were turned into muppets.
Short-form media is inherently more deceptive and less complex, but go ahead and feel pity for me. I'm sure you'll do just fine, you are enjoying it already.
TikTokers are kind of muppets, now that you mention it.
During the W43 admin some reporter from the NYT or Wa Po was told by a member of the Admin that the reporter was from "the reality-based community." Even then they sensed 1.) adults, and 2.) terminally clueless children of all ages who only wanted to be told "reality" is what they want it to be.
This was before all the social media and YouTube stuff took off.
The problem to me is: okay, the "legacy media" is dying. But at least those were ADULTS. I don't think 57 year old adolescents like Joe Rogan can be trusted to report on anything that has to do with the meat and potatoes "boring" news stories that nevertheless have bearing on our quality of life. And I should clarify that I'm speaking as a non-rich person who has zero interest in "influencers," being hopelessly olde myself.
There are events in the world that occur that need to be covered by people schooled in basic reporting and journalistic ethics. Then there is: OPINION. Does anyone know the difference? Show of hands?
I get the glee over dinosaurs becoming obsolete, but we still need actual journalists to report on actual news. Who will do this?
ProPublica has provided outstanding investigative journalism for years.
Their coverage includes both local and national stories...they're expanding local coverage in 2025.
As legacy media dies in daylight, subscription fees should be directed towards ProPublica, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Texas Tribune, The Tennessee Holler, and other outlets performing fact-based reporting.
I guess the answer is ordinary people. For good and for bad. They can lie too, but you can put one up against the other and actually analyse evidence. A journalist is going to lie to you and you’re going to believe him because she’s a journalist.
I’m less concerned with how this shakes out as far as who is buying what or earning from what, than with how this will continue to destroy politics, shared national culture( or even regional and local culture….what happened to a sense of place??) and a sense of belonging to a shared reality. Does someone who follows Jynxshie or whatever it is even have the same reference for ANYTHING as someone who follows Dan Rather and Heather Richardson? It’s already here as you and Rick Beato so convincingly report with media and I see with my own eyes (and ears). The complete lack of understanding from most of my acquaintance for the need to BUY music, to support people who play an actual instrument, or sing, or drum, rather than twist knobs on a box or play an iPad on stage. Will our cultural hunter gatherer tribalism result in an actual literal political feudalism as people gather around whatever magical thinking anti-science, guru or culture icon who carves out actual space as well as digital space?
Not many people trust the so called mainstream media anymore, they lied about Covid they lied about Biden’s mental health and many other issues, they had just become a mouthpiece for the Democrats and whatever agenda they were pushing, it became difficult to know where the Democrat party starts and the media ends. I’m guessing that when Trump gets sworn in they will suddenly find their backbone again and start questioning the powerful.
Most -- not all -- of those streamers are generating that content by playing games (KaiCenat even had a popular Elden Ring series, though he is bigger than games).
It's also important to note that one of the main game formats right now is Battle Royale -- a group of players drop into an arena totally equal, rely on chance and skill to gather weapons and survive, and ultimately claim the top prize (e.g. PUBG, Fortnite, etc.). Call of Duty and other FPS games are radically democratic and give young men (and old) a way of testing themselves and achieving in a public space.
As a result of its popularity, gaming is generating big money and engagement. However, it is constantly in conflict with corporate overlords, who don't respect the secret sauce to a compelling game and feel like they have to corrupt their titles with politics by jamming woke / DEI nonsense into everything. Asmongold is one streamer who covers this conflict, pointing out the problems and getting into scraps with supporters of lefty stuff (look up Sweet Baby Inc. for context).
Some AAA games that have integrity have succeeded (e.g. Elden Ring, Astro Bot). Many corporate games have not (look up Concord, anything by Ubisoft including Star Wars: Outlaws, etc.). The losses have been outrageous -- we're talking hundreds of millions of dollars, again and again.
And then you have the indie scene, where true magic happens. With very little overhead, a card game called Balatro, developed by a single still-anonymous person called LocalThunk in tandem with a musician and a localizer, has racked up millions of sales and won tons of awards.
I would say that gaming is probably the most important entertainment category right now -- and the least understood by elites. If you aren't playing some kind of game, you are blind to all of this.
So I think your analysis, while smart as hell, could do with some exposure to this side of things. People are playing games because it gives them freedom they have been denied in real life.
It’s not “new tech” that has enabled solo devs to make excellent titles like Balatro and Animal Well which released this year. IMO it is making something with passion, rather than trying to spend and focus group their way to success.
Oh don’t get me wrong, I didn’t meant to disregard female gamers, and I kinda love that women are into games. (I sometimes watch the Catherine of Sky strategy games channel.) I also find my tastes shifting as I get older. As you get older, once you play enough of one kind of game the novelty wears off and you become more particular and discerning. I’m finding that I like fewer and fewer games as time goes on.
Where are these independent streamers getting the news they are commenting on? Someone still has to go out to places and ask people questions and do basic journalistic investigations. The way I see it, what's being hijacked by the streaming influencers is primarily the jobs of the anchors who read the news on camera. Aren't these streamers essentially glorified anchorpeople combined with editorializers? We can't just have a world of anchors and commentators. Someone still has to go get the news in the first place and that's expensive.
Who or whatever that genie is that ain't going back into the bottle will still need to entertain or divert an audience to build a market. We live in a Market Ruled nation which reduces life and the arts that reflect on the mysteries of life, existence, being, community to competing stimuli. Keep yo eye on da Stimuli! It lies before US....
mainstream celebrity is dead! Hollywood is collapsing, The NBA ratings have gone the way of CNN. The era of freedom of choice in media is upon us. Amen!
Wow - a lot to take in, to think about, to pay attention to as things develop, and to try not to worry too much about, being a totally uninfluencial boomer ... Thank you
Ted, we get it. You’re a booster for Substack. Substack is the future. Media will all become some version of Substack. Hallelujah!
Let’s be real. A lot of this is about society dumbing down, something you yourself argued in a great essay months ago. Hopefully, more people can put away their phones and become readers. Otherwise, this is largely the deluge of dreck flooding our new media.
It's not the fringe. I had to literally beg a journalist to correct his story after the AP came out that Officer Sicknick did not die from the events of J6. We the People are tired of the biased reporting so we stopped watching. They are responsible for their own demise. #truthalways
1) Problem is, this fringe culture has a parasitic relationship to mainstream journalism. All of the legwork is still done with big or institutional money. Most of the fringe culture, including Substack, is only commentary. If the mainstream disappeared, curation and fact-checking would disappear, and the only truth we’d have is what governments tell us and the fringe tells us to keep us hooked.
2) Video games have been like this for a while now. When I considered it as a career in the early 2000s, only mainstream existed, and every game wanted to use all the best computer power and have more advanced graphics. (And even then, indie game mods were a big thing, Counter-Strike being the prime example). Once the smartphone was released, the popularity of simpler games soared and there are now a huge amount of indie game developers with tiny teams making hugely successful smaller but beautiful games.
At 76 years of age, it's fair to say I'm entering the home stretch, but one thing I won't miss when I put my cue back in the rack is the complete bastardization of the entertainment models that have sustained me for seven decades.
Hi David! Great comment. Never heard that analogy before. Went right away to your Substack. Nothing there yet?
Jerad,
Sorry about the delayed response. I have a Substack account, but I've not yet made use of it. If you liked my pool cue analogy, "called for the check" also works.
It's inevitable that someone(s) with a YouTube channel will do more for new music than record labels because labels would rather buy catalogues than develop and nourish new talent. And that will come at a cost to their influence which will decline.
And then rinse and repeat....
The way that news and World affairs issues reach us has changed, and instead of coming through a few narrow funnels it showers onto us from all over the place. It’s a huge change and it’s changing things faster than we can keep up with. I used to laugh when my daughter would say “I saw it on TikTok”; I don’t anymore. Instead of sneering we need a good look in the mirror and repent for the way we gobbled down all the lies and manipulation from those “reputed news outlets”, building up public opinion for unjust wars and barbaric behaviour. How could we have been such an easy prey?
I hear ya; my whole life seems to have been reading news that had been reported by a low-level reporter who got vetted while hiring and her stories all got vetted by the suits, because news has always been a business and you don't report nasty stuff done by some subsidiary of a corporation that either owns your news outlet of spends a lot on ads there.
Still: opinion and "wouldn't it be cool if...?" stories are not news. Without even corporate news we no idea what's really going on in the world; with the "legacy" outlets at least we could get good at reading between the lines.
Absolutely! I used to take pride and even identify with my news outlets (BBC, The Guardian, El País - I’m in Spain - NYT…) and it turns out I was the muppet and my teenagers were getting closer to the truth on TikTok. Some things are changing for the better.
And TikTok will make us even easier prey, but people aren't ready to see that yet.
I guess it’ll make easier prey of those not willing to put any effort into even getting close to the complexities of what’s happening, but it does give those who make an effort direct access to different views of what’s actually happening. Until recently the educated relied on their media for the educated to form their opinion for them. And they were turned into muppets.
Short-form media is inherently more deceptive and less complex, but go ahead and feel pity for me. I'm sure you'll do just fine, you are enjoying it already.
TikTokers are kind of muppets, now that you mention it.
Time for books - more books.
This my strategy, as well.
During the W43 admin some reporter from the NYT or Wa Po was told by a member of the Admin that the reporter was from "the reality-based community." Even then they sensed 1.) adults, and 2.) terminally clueless children of all ages who only wanted to be told "reality" is what they want it to be.
This was before all the social media and YouTube stuff took off.
The problem to me is: okay, the "legacy media" is dying. But at least those were ADULTS. I don't think 57 year old adolescents like Joe Rogan can be trusted to report on anything that has to do with the meat and potatoes "boring" news stories that nevertheless have bearing on our quality of life. And I should clarify that I'm speaking as a non-rich person who has zero interest in "influencers," being hopelessly olde myself.
There are events in the world that occur that need to be covered by people schooled in basic reporting and journalistic ethics. Then there is: OPINION. Does anyone know the difference? Show of hands?
I get the glee over dinosaurs becoming obsolete, but we still need actual journalists to report on actual news. Who will do this?
ProPublica has provided outstanding investigative journalism for years.
Their coverage includes both local and national stories...they're expanding local coverage in 2025.
As legacy media dies in daylight, subscription fees should be directed towards ProPublica, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Texas Tribune, The Tennessee Holler, and other outlets performing fact-based reporting.
The "actual journalists" are but fluffers to power, Renaissance courtiers but without the colorful outfits.
Julian Assange never printed an untrue word, and was imprisoned for his pains.
I guess the answer is ordinary people. For good and for bad. They can lie too, but you can put one up against the other and actually analyse evidence. A journalist is going to lie to you and you’re going to believe him because she’s a journalist.
I’m less concerned with how this shakes out as far as who is buying what or earning from what, than with how this will continue to destroy politics, shared national culture( or even regional and local culture….what happened to a sense of place??) and a sense of belonging to a shared reality. Does someone who follows Jynxshie or whatever it is even have the same reference for ANYTHING as someone who follows Dan Rather and Heather Richardson? It’s already here as you and Rick Beato so convincingly report with media and I see with my own eyes (and ears). The complete lack of understanding from most of my acquaintance for the need to BUY music, to support people who play an actual instrument, or sing, or drum, rather than twist knobs on a box or play an iPad on stage. Will our cultural hunter gatherer tribalism result in an actual literal political feudalism as people gather around whatever magical thinking anti-science, guru or culture icon who carves out actual space as well as digital space?
Not many people trust the so called mainstream media anymore, they lied about Covid they lied about Biden’s mental health and many other issues, they had just become a mouthpiece for the Democrats and whatever agenda they were pushing, it became difficult to know where the Democrat party starts and the media ends. I’m guessing that when Trump gets sworn in they will suddenly find their backbone again and start questioning the powerful.
Super important context you haven't mentioned:
Most -- not all -- of those streamers are generating that content by playing games (KaiCenat even had a popular Elden Ring series, though he is bigger than games).
It's also important to note that one of the main game formats right now is Battle Royale -- a group of players drop into an arena totally equal, rely on chance and skill to gather weapons and survive, and ultimately claim the top prize (e.g. PUBG, Fortnite, etc.). Call of Duty and other FPS games are radically democratic and give young men (and old) a way of testing themselves and achieving in a public space.
As a result of its popularity, gaming is generating big money and engagement. However, it is constantly in conflict with corporate overlords, who don't respect the secret sauce to a compelling game and feel like they have to corrupt their titles with politics by jamming woke / DEI nonsense into everything. Asmongold is one streamer who covers this conflict, pointing out the problems and getting into scraps with supporters of lefty stuff (look up Sweet Baby Inc. for context).
Some AAA games that have integrity have succeeded (e.g. Elden Ring, Astro Bot). Many corporate games have not (look up Concord, anything by Ubisoft including Star Wars: Outlaws, etc.). The losses have been outrageous -- we're talking hundreds of millions of dollars, again and again.
And then you have the indie scene, where true magic happens. With very little overhead, a card game called Balatro, developed by a single still-anonymous person called LocalThunk in tandem with a musician and a localizer, has racked up millions of sales and won tons of awards.
I would say that gaming is probably the most important entertainment category right now -- and the least understood by elites. If you aren't playing some kind of game, you are blind to all of this.
So I think your analysis, while smart as hell, could do with some exposure to this side of things. People are playing games because it gives them freedom they have been denied in real life.
Agree that games deserve more consideration here.
It’s not “new tech” that has enabled solo devs to make excellent titles like Balatro and Animal Well which released this year. IMO it is making something with passion, rather than trying to spend and focus group their way to success.
Oh don’t get me wrong, I didn’t meant to disregard female gamers, and I kinda love that women are into games. (I sometimes watch the Catherine of Sky strategy games channel.) I also find my tastes shifting as I get older. As you get older, once you play enough of one kind of game the novelty wears off and you become more particular and discerning. I’m finding that I like fewer and fewer games as time goes on.
Hold on here.....
Where are these independent streamers getting the news they are commenting on? Someone still has to go out to places and ask people questions and do basic journalistic investigations. The way I see it, what's being hijacked by the streaming influencers is primarily the jobs of the anchors who read the news on camera. Aren't these streamers essentially glorified anchorpeople combined with editorializers? We can't just have a world of anchors and commentators. Someone still has to go get the news in the first place and that's expensive.
It's all good news if you're in the business of amusing people to death in short, addictive chunks.
Don't matter if it's good news or not. It’s a genie that ain't going back into the bottle.
Who or whatever that genie is that ain't going back into the bottle will still need to entertain or divert an audience to build a market. We live in a Market Ruled nation which reduces life and the arts that reflect on the mysteries of life, existence, being, community to competing stimuli. Keep yo eye on da Stimuli! It lies before US....
Tio Mitchito
mainstream celebrity is dead! Hollywood is collapsing, The NBA ratings have gone the way of CNN. The era of freedom of choice in media is upon us. Amen!
Wow - a lot to take in, to think about, to pay attention to as things develop, and to try not to worry too much about, being a totally uninfluencial boomer ... Thank you
Ok, subjective value judgment time. :)
I didn't know who Kai Cenat was, so I looked him up on YouTube and sat through a few minutes of one of his most popular streaming episodes.
My verdict: the video is dumb. So a bunch of young guys stand around, say and do stupid things, and people watch it and comment on it.
God help us all.
Ted, we get it. You’re a booster for Substack. Substack is the future. Media will all become some version of Substack. Hallelujah!
Let’s be real. A lot of this is about society dumbing down, something you yourself argued in a great essay months ago. Hopefully, more people can put away their phones and become readers. Otherwise, this is largely the deluge of dreck flooding our new media.
It's not the fringe. I had to literally beg a journalist to correct his story after the AP came out that Officer Sicknick did not die from the events of J6. We the People are tired of the biased reporting so we stopped watching. They are responsible for their own demise. #truthalways
1) Problem is, this fringe culture has a parasitic relationship to mainstream journalism. All of the legwork is still done with big or institutional money. Most of the fringe culture, including Substack, is only commentary. If the mainstream disappeared, curation and fact-checking would disappear, and the only truth we’d have is what governments tell us and the fringe tells us to keep us hooked.
2) Video games have been like this for a while now. When I considered it as a career in the early 2000s, only mainstream existed, and every game wanted to use all the best computer power and have more advanced graphics. (And even then, indie game mods were a big thing, Counter-Strike being the prime example). Once the smartphone was released, the popularity of simpler games soared and there are now a huge amount of indie game developers with tiny teams making hugely successful smaller but beautiful games.