Have you ever wondered why so much popular music, movies, television, books and so on are so terrible? I began thinking about it as I read James Joyner’s post on media convergence and the reinvention of television.
One reason might be Sturgeon’s Law: “90% of everything is crudâ€. That’s comforting in a way but I’m not sure that it’s the whole explanation.
I think part of the reason is that it’s so much easier and cheaper to produce bad music, bad movies, bad television, etc. than it is to produce good music, good movies, and good television. To produce the good requires thought, effort, and talent—all in short supply and, consequently, costly. Any no-talent schlub can write, direct, or act in a lousy movie. And, fortunately, there’s an enormous supply of no-talent schlubs who want to write, direct, or act in movies, television, music, etc.
And there’s a sort of Gresham’s Law involved—the bad drives out the good. You promote the living daylights out of the bad, there’s only so much eyeball time or eardrum time, you control access to the eyeballs and eardrums through copyrights, franchises, and licensing agreements, and the talented go do something else.
Will the Internet overwhelm this strategy and break through the folks without notable talent of their own but who control the access to the eyeballs and eardrums? Could be. I have my doubts.
What do you think?
Your explanation seems reasonable. One thing I would add is the tendency to copycat original and successful works. So for every book, movie, or TV show that’s original and successful (or even just successful) an entire slew of copycats are quickly turned out to capitalize and ride on the coattails of that one hit. Almost all the copycats are bad.
It might depend on what we are talking about. Movies might fit the 90% garbage threshold better than other parts of pop culture.
I’m not sure if there even IS a “pop culture” in music or books anymore. One can very successfully go through life reading new fiction and non-fiction all the time AND listening to new music without so much as stepping a toe into the dreck of the Top 10 of Hot 100 lists. I’ve found it quite easy to get quality out of the niches I follow. There is more good stuff to buy than I could possibly afford.
Over time television has become more niche oriented, and as that continues you will have room for quality. For example, how much money could you realistically save producing a crap show for the Food Network as opposed to something good? Probably not a lot.
So I’ve some optimism.