The Atlantic: Nobody Knows What’s Happening Online Anymore. Why you’ve probably never heard of the most popular Netflix show in the world.

An insightful thought from a TV critic I read years ago just as streaming was taking off :

There’s no such thing as the best TV show anymore, because there’s so much that’s generally good enough to be a candidate that no one person has watched it all and spent the time to assess it properly.

More broadly, this had happened to western culture with the internet. Previously, with only three tv channels and two major papers, we were all literally on the same page.

I’d go further and say there’s a vertical dimension too in terms of complexity. Society and its various aspects such as technology are now complex enough in total they I don’t think anyone can ever say they understand what’s going on.

One of the worst catalysts of this is when channels started dropping entire seasons of shows at once online to appease le epic binge watching culture. But when everyone watches something new like that at once, there's no time to actually appreciate anything or discuss the story or build anticipation, it just gets burned through and forgotten within 2 weeks.
- Yea for sure.
  
  I think that whole thing of dropping whole seasons and how it’s kinda faded somewhat is an interesting case study of this particular internet culture moment.
  
  Where we think we want more and faster but have lost sight that that’s just a dumb dopamine mentality left unbalanced and unmitigated and that we actually prefer more traditional forms of various things.
- It does still allow for catch-up at the end of the run though. I prefer to binge watch, but now I wait a few months for it all to be released and then watch it. Which still doesn't allow for week to week discussion, but fits my watching patterns better.
- Don't know about you but I have no interest in discussing TV shows with anyone. They're for my personal enjoyment.
  
  And I absolutely loathe being left on a cliffhanger every week and then having to remember to go back and check every Tuesday or whatever. Most often what happens is that I forget about or lose interest in the show entirely.
I use the phrase “societal decoheshion” to describe that. We (whoever that may be) just aren’t all that unified enough in our culture or information sources anymore.

Even just since Reddit became dead to us, my wife (who I met through Reddit) and I went to different platforms, and find ourselves often catching each other up on what our respective corners of the internet are doing.
- I think culture just doesn't respect traditional boundaries anymore. There's still unity, but it might be with some anonymous individuals from across the globe.
There are tons of young millionaire youtubers who I've never heard of. It's pretty cool actually that there are so many niches to fill.
- And plenty of poor low-subscriber channels that are actually really good and could blow up at some point.
  
  I’ve certainly watched some people from before they were big and from memory their content was more or less just as good in the “early” days. Which all up makes for a pile of stuff!
I do, I learned everything on Facebook. AMA
- What is in the vaccine Uncle Jerry?
There IS a best TV show and it’s Six Feet Under and it’s perfect and the ending makes me cri every time and I will FIGHT ANYONE WHO DISAGREES

But srsly it’s a 10/10
- My wife and I just finished the finale tonight, and it was a great ending. Very little ambiguity, real closure, and an emotionally appropriate song.
  
  But, I think it is far from "the best TV show". It may have been "the best" for a TV drama when it came out because it was groundbreaking, but the acting and writing at times could be pretty bad (so many dropped plots with no follow-up or consequences). It also went on for far too long, which was a consequence of having to create 12 episodes per season, each the same length.
  
  It's worth watching, but I'd give it a 7.8/10.

I'm pretty happy here in our corner of Lemmy. Why would I want to know what's going everywhere on the internet all at once?

This.

Lemmy isn't at mass growth yet. So right now - it's nice to NOT see every stupid story about some no-name political guy say something stupid. Or NOT hear about some rage bait game pissing people off. Or NOT know about a shitty conglomerate is continuing being shitty.
- Wait, you're not seeing those posts? Because you just described like a third of all Lemmy posts that come across my screen.

Netflix’s single most popular anything from January and June 2023 was a recent thriller series called The Night Agent, which was streamed for 812 million hours globally.

Saved you a click.

And The Night Agent was a fantastic show. You should go watch it.

Was it? It was fine -- that thing you throw on because you've watched most of everything else that fills that kind of derivative political action conspiracy thriller. Not particularly intelligent, not particularly funny, a loose enough plot that you can be paying attention once every 5 minutes and get by. Some folks get shot. There's a conspiracy ooooOOOOoooh.

Maybe that's what defines good these days, when content is just a glut of mediocrity.

I was shocked it was up top the list in terms of 'quality,' but I watched it because, it was there... So, I guess that explains it?

The Recruit (similar vein) was a superior show in terms of quality. Recommend that if you need a quick fix.
- AAA quality is wanting these days. I just got done watching Rebel Moon. Apparently a $166m budget movie. Completely devoid of anything resembling a story or characters.
Ehh, it really wasn't. But I also couldn't get into Squid Game either. I'm sure they are fine, but nothing I haven't seen plenty of times over.

This might explain why meta wants to join the fediverse.

A shift away from a knowable internet might feel like a return to something smaller and purer. An internet with no discernable monoculture may feel, especially to those who’ve been continuously plugged into trending topics and viral culture, like a relief. But this new era of the internet is also one that entrenches tech giants and any forthcoming emergent platforms as the sole gatekeepers when it comes to tracking the way that information travels. We already know them to be unreliable narrators and poor stewards, but on a fragmented internet, where recommendation algorithms beat out the older follower model, we rely on these corporations to give us a sense of scale.

But I have heard of Stranger Things!

The Night Agent is the most watched Netflix show they're talking about

I don't know how many are like me who almost doesn't watch tv shows at all. I tried to watch a few but at best it's quite mediocre to me compared to a good movie, and they are too long for my like. Nowadays I only watch movies, or read books, besides playing games. I don't know how much I'm considered a weirdo today for not watching tv shows at all.

Where as I'm the converse, all I watch is tv these days. Will watch 10 movies a year, if that. I long the longer and stronger connection I can form with the characters over a tv season. And I did they can tell more elaborate stories with the longer time compared to a movie. Different strokes for different folks though.
Don't worry, I watch neither TV shows nor movies. I would just rather do something else with my time, like programming stuff, learning something new, and playing video games. If I am stuck with nothing to do I will watch something on YouTube. I think I would rather watch content made by real people instead of studios if that make sense.
- I stopped gaming, watch almost no TV and it's been like this for about a year. It just kind of happened. I've learned python and am getting the hang of bash, I've actually been making progress on my hip hopera about casual every day political extremism, I've redecorated my house using generative ai (in fact it's what's actually allowed me to work on my hip hopera because I do not sound great tapping even if I've got rhymes for days), repainted most of my home, refinished my bath tub, made an 8 foot tall demon statue out of cement that, while terrifying at first, I've come to feel quite a bit of fondness for. Also built my girlfriend a life sized turtle statue for her birthday, created a short comic book and action figure for a superhero alter ego for same girlfriend for Christmas , learned how to use a whole host of generative ai technologies, wrote a 60 page Star Trek the next generation erotic fan fiction which I've begun recording using audio AI models I've trained of the Enterprise crew for maximum effect (I'm ashamed this exists honestly but I'll be damned if I let an abomination go to waste), replaced the faces and voices of every character in the empire strikes back with my face and voice and distributed to my friends, so many things.
  
  It's weird to look back on this last year and a) see all the things I've done and b) realize that there's so many years where I did literally nothing
Yeah I haven't watched a show in so long. There's some I know I'd like but don't care enough to get engaged, it's the same with a lot of movies. I find the way a lot of characters are portrayed I have no connection with and feel like I'm watching these weird uncanny valley versions of people.
By myself I never really watch TV shows for the same reasons you mentioned but with my wife we watch an episode of something for dinner. Shows like chernobyl or the wire were really good and I'm glad I watched them but there are a lot of shows that just don't end and they get old quick

Thanks for posting the archived version. I ran across this story recently and hit a paywall right after the article mentioned the problem with paywalls.