Streaming and Culture - A Little Bit of Everything All of the Time

 

("Welcome to the Internet" by Bo Burnham, June 4, 2021)

In 2021, comedian and musical artist Bo Burnham released Inside, a comedy special filmed and produced entirely in Burnham's home during the height of the covid-19 pandemic. The special, which streamed exclusively on Netflix, tackled many issues such as political injustice, mental health, and as seen in the above video, the internet and its impact on the human psyche and culture. The above song, titled "Welcome to the Internet," expresses some of Burnham's thoughts about how the internet has impacted how we interact with media and culture. His conclusion is that the internet has created a culture where engagement and interaction are the most important ways to be involved in culture, and within that culture, one must be constantly engaged with as much as possible. Singing as the internet in this song, he sings "could I interest you in everything all of the time?", referencing this very issue (Burnham, 2021). There is an irony, then, that this critique of perpetually online culture was first presented on Netflix, one of the largest streaming websites on the internet and certainly a contributing factor in the very cultural changes Burnham sings about here. In many ways, the fact that Burnham chose to first present this special is indicative of the changes streaming services like Netflix have brought to the media landscape, specifically in how we interact with the mediums of film and television. Audiences have access to just about any kind of media that could ask for through streaming services, and that access is instant and available any time they could want it. So what are the implications of this change, and how do they affect the industries they have disrupted?

The most obvious way streaming services have impacted culture is how they have changed how we watch film and television. "Binge-watching" has become a new norm in media consumption that can really only exist in a world with streaming services that allow users to consume entire film and television series in a single sitting, and it changes much of the conversation around this media from the experience of watching it to the completion of the content (Kafidoff, 2023). One needs to stay up to date on the latest series and batch-watch whole seasons of content just to stay relevant in the cultural zeitgeist. Furthermore, this level of access and emphasis on staying caught up promotes seeking out this content alone, and since one does not need to go to a movie theatre or wait for a show to premiere at a certain time, there is a loss of community connection (2023). Finally, streaming services are able to fulfill the demand for more diverse and niche content that is far more difficult through more traditional means of distribution, and this has the positive side effect of allowing more diverse voices to be expressed through this medium (2023).

Yet despite all this change, much of the industry seems to be falling into old habits. The Streaming Wars, that on-going struggle for the many streaming services to draw in as many viewers as possible, shares much of the same DNA as television channels and cable companies seeking to do the same thing. For a deeper analysis on how this "conflict" is shaping up, check out the video below, but suffice it to say the more things change, the more they stay the same (TLDR Business, 2022).

(Who's Winning the Streaming Wars? (2022 Edition) by TLDR Business, December 27, 2022)

References

Burnham, B. [boburnham]. (2021, June 4). Welcome to the Internet – Bo Burnham (from “Inside”—ALBUM OUT NOW) [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/k1BneeJTDcU

Kafidoff, V. (2023, January 18). The impact of streaming services on the film industry. Every Movie Has a Lesson. https://everymoviehasalesson.com/blog/2023/1/the-impact-of-streaming-services-on-the-film-industry#:~:text=Streaming%20services%20have%20also%20had,decline%20in%20box%20office%20sales.

TLDR Business. (2022, December 27). Who's Winning the Streaming Wars (2022 Edition) [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEA0EQouo4E