I’ve always had a wide vision. Some say it’s too wide. I see media and entertainment for what it can be instead of what it has become. It curates an ambitious path of goals that creates a game of ‘connect the dots’ – with disappearing dots. I’ll never walk away because that wide vision is attainable. Despite trying to chase those disappearing dots.
The Attention Economy
We live in an interesting time of the ‘attention economy’. An era where the ‘how’ is more important than the ‘why’. According to ZipDo, the average consumer is exposed to roughly 6,000 to 10,000 advertisements per day. Programmatic advertising was predicted to account for 92% of all digital advertising spending this year. That means we live our lives according to the algorithm. Now, more than ever. Slaves to the robots.
I hate to be the one kicking and screaming but I can’t help but wonder how much soul is in this stuff? How much of today’s entertainment and media vibrates with us in ways that are conducive to our daily lives? Instead of being predatory towards our devices. I congratulated two of my friends (well, one is a cousin) for completing law school and now my timeline is full of law school graduates. Not to mention, I’m seeing ads for law schools and universities.
No thanks, algorithm. I’m already up to my neck in student loans for grad school.
People Really Hate Advertisements
Speaking of advertisements, a 2022 survey by Kantar revealed that 8 in 10 consumers find advertisements annoying. “People hate advertising. They f@&*ing truly and actually, hate it … and this all the agencies’ and advertisers’ fault,” said by Boudica Chief Creative Officer, Joanna Coales. She shared that most consumers will do anything to skip ads. According to Forbes, there are several factors in the advertising industry that have become annoying. Concerns of trustworthiness, advertising fatigue, lack of culture, pointlessness (more about this later), relevance, woke-washing, and others are the driving factors behind the industry’s decline. It’s predatory.
Not all are bad. Some are subtle reminders of a great product. Others are flat jokes and cringy ‘Tik Tok’ dances just to say they got your eyeballs. They only need a few seconds of your time to make some advertising money off of you. I wasn’t supposed to tell you about that, though. So, you know, keep it between us.
I’m no fool. I know that advertising is what keeps a lot of businesses alive. Especially in this industry. I just see a world where the ads aren’t predatory, random, abusive, and intrusive. Just imagine if all of those words represented someone. You’d hate them, right? Wouldn’t trust them as far as you could throw them. That’s a problem.
Oftentimes, we’ll watch a commercial and have no clue what they’re selling. We’ll hear their new campaign slogan and be more confused than enticed. Trying everything except to connect. Bullying us – strong-arming our attention.
Today’s entertainment is no different. We see their faces. We hear their voices. They are forgotten before sundown.
And, I Miss Stars That Shined During the Day, Too
That’s something that bothers me, too. I believe in an entertainment economy that entertains and engages fans at transformative intersections of culture. I believe in artist-audience connections that develop into decades-worth of service to community and culture. I’m haunted by a vision – a cultural renaissance; a place where art becomes the tool. Where artists cry with you. Actors bloom with you. Writers make you believe in something, again. Purpose in song and dance.
This is something that I want to explore more. I’d love to analyze the career-spans of today’s artists in comparison to yester-decades. It’s proven that human attention spans have thinned out. Early 2000s research clocked our attention spans at about 2.5 minutes, on average. In recent iterations of that same study, the average has gone down to 47 seconds (Ducharme, 2023). I can’t help but wonder what that spells for media and entertainment consumption.
Researchers detail that the never-ending pattern of dopamine mining on our devices is the culprit. “Screens present a unique minefield of distractability, with their constant flow of notifications and information—and that’s by design,” says Gloria Mark, professor of Informatics at University of California Irvine.“It’s not just the fact that there’s algorithms catching our attention. We have this sense that we have to respond, we have to check.”
Every time we do, our brains get a small jolt of dopamine. The catalyst to an addiction. The master and the slave.
Fin.
My theory? Well, I don’t know if I have a fully-developed one, yet. A lot of our minds have developed into mush. Spineless, shapeless, mush. I have to catch myself, sometimes. The feeling hurts, at first. Then I realize that this very feeling is at the base of The CTZNS existence.
These are the questions we’ll answer. This is why we are here.
