We Used to Be a Proper Country
In 2020, I watched this movie called Selah and the Spades and I haven’t looked back since. I’ve watched it countless times and penned one two articles in the past few years about it.
On disappearing media
In an article on the loss of high street record stores, (it’s hidden behind a paywall but I’ve saved it so you can read here), Adam Harper examines the current digital landscape and ponders the legacy of the music listening and discovery experience. ‘The demise of HMV can be marked as an opportunity to mourn the decline of owning tangible media. Without HMV, it will become a form of privilege much more than it ever was, but this is already practically the case.’
Throughout the article, he talks about the importance and the ease of music today as an online database that ‘can be ‘owned’ (downloaded and kept, albeit within a computer) and backed up even if they cannot be held and shelved.’ Basically, because more and more people are spending money renting and moving spaces, people can’t afford to keep buying physical [music] media. Tough times are lasting to the detriment of livelihood and media archives. The lure of streaming and subscription based platforms ran Blockbuster into the ground. Netflix brought a new and shiny premise of multiple options, one place. Unfortunately, this current digital era means we’re spending more money on ease but risk similarly losing this peace of mind because we don’t really own anything. It could be funny if it wasn’t actually quite sad.
‘The turn to streaming in music consumption is only partially a consequence of technology, since across the world in recent decades, access to resources has increasingly become a matter of ‘renting,’ whether living spaces or the services and utilities managed undemocratically by private companies. Rents disempower renters, rents go up, and we are unlikely to see a publicly run National Music Streaming Service any time soon.’
For the love of money
Since September 2014 through to July 2023, Netflix has cancelled 102 shows including Sense8, Daredevil, The Punisher and Grand Army to name a few. Mind you, Netflix only started producing their own original content in 2013. Netflix original movies are also not safe, [see: Power of the Dog]. Nearly very week there’s news of something else being cancelled. Netflix as always, are on the front lines but they’re not alone. These cancelled shows for the most part only exist online. I can’t buy High Fidelity (2020) on DVD in the same way I can get The OC. It’s not just the fact that these shows don’t have the opportunity to grow (10 episode seasons, you will crumble), they also don’t get to be revisited offline.
Disappearing media is a bigger issue than everything is online or in the cloud. I’m not just moaning about that (though my points are very, very valid), I’m upset because profit and overconsumption is being prioritised over meaningful or good or fun output. It’s always about the bottom line and we’re all sort of the losers at the end of the day. The media is going poof. The actors and writers and creative teams have been fighting for their lives to be paid, AI is being a menace and nothing is in one place. It’s all here today, gone tomorrow.
I would be remiss to not point out the disparity in what shows get to stay (a little longer) but I’ve left some clues below!
William Jackson Harper Says He Was “Big Mad” After ‘Love Life’ Was Pulled From HBO Max
Zoë Kravitz Doubles Down on Hulu Criticism: ‘Big Mistake’ to Cancel ‘High Fidelity’
Zoe Kravitz, you ate that one thing
Alright, back to me.
I started building my very slow and pretty small but sure collection of CDs and DVDs a few years ago. For my birthday this year, I let nostalgia win over and bought a Nintendo DS because I wanted to play Nintendogs. I contemplated buying a cassette player for the sheer choice of not being overwhelmed by l the things I could listen to on Spotify and YouTube. More recently I’ve been thinking of how I want a portable CD player (for actual practical reasons o, it’s not just for alte).
We used to be a proper country! We used to have physical stuff to entertain and connect and relive past moments through.
‘But we can still do that now.’ Don’t be annoying!
We can, and we do but there’s something to be said about how much media, how much history and archival space and footage and documents and even present day works of our hands are disappearing. Streaming and the digital landscape and technology, all these things are good (to a point).
But you know, they’re also sort of maybe bad ish? They have absolutely and undeniably changed the way we interact with visual and auditory media to the point where it’d be laughably ridiculous if it wasn’t so scary.
