“The digital revolution has democratized the landscape of art — as long as you have Internet access, of course.” —Jonathan Raeder
Has the internet changed the consumption of art for better or for worse?
FOR BETTER
It’s hard for many college students to remember the days before the Internet. Even when it was a beeping, lethargic beast that tied up phone lines and moved at the speed of a drunken turtle, it still allowed for connections of ideas, art and conversations around the world. Within a relatively short time period, it’s come to dominate our existence and irrevocably change the way we learn about, consume, and create art and media.
The digital revolution has democratized the landscape of art — as long as you have Internet access, of course. Nearly every film, show and album is available through legal (and illegal) means via the Internet. We’ve grown up in a world in which art is so widely available that the very idea of being physically unable to see a movie or listen to a record is unsettling. Think about it; we have access to nearly unlimited sources of human knowledge and self-expression, as well as an unhealthy amount of videos of cats, in our pockets.
Gone are the days when listening to the latest big release meant trekking to the nearest record store and hoping it was in stock. Gone are the days when the only music you heard about was on the radio and the only way you could see an arthouse film was if you happened to live by a film festival. Gone are the days when your activities were scheduled around a television show — as well as the days when television was usually consumed one episode a week.
We live in a world of music blogs, Bandcamp, Netflix, binge-watching, NOOKs, Kindles, iTunes, Spotify — the list of ways to consume art goes on and on. Fans of art in all its forms from the time before the Internet would kill to have the access we have.
The Internet allows for representation of your taste, no matter how eclectic — for like-minded people to discuss what music fuels them, to find potential band members, to spread what they’ve already made to anyone willing to listen. Who knows how many talented bands in the pre-Internet era never managed to gain enough fans and money to sell records? Now it’s as simple as downloading an editing program and throwing together some songs. Upload them online, and even if you don’t make a lot of money from them (or instead put them up for free), you gain exposure; people hear what you’ve made. It’s possible for a trendy blog to stumble upon your music and write a good review of it. You could start playing shows as a result. None of this could have happened before the Internet; record deals were too reliant on accessibility and money.
The meteoric rise of television in the past decade or two to the state of arguably being better than most films owes a large debt to the Internet. Most of the critically acclaimed and powerful television programs are serialized in nature and need to be seen from the very beginning. How could television networks expect people to naturally know what was going to be a good show and watch it from the beginning, or get caught up when the Zeitgeist latched onto a new show? Netflix allows for binge-watching and for catching up on shows you didn’t see from the beginning. It’s even possible for good television to be produced by entities other than networks. House of Cards and Orange Is the New Black are only tastes of what’s to come.
The Web has even more advantages. The entire nature of pop culture criticism has been molded by the Internet. This very site and any like it, places dedicated to serious discussion of film, independent music and television, were rare before the Internet. Now, we have the ability to experience art with millions of others, discussing music, film, literature, games and television with people around the world.
Just think of shows such as Lost, Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones and True Detective that became cultural phenomena. Fan theories, live-tweeting, video reviews, blogs, think pieces: They’re all ways for fans to interact with one another and mutually experience art in ways that were impossible before the Internet.
Yes, the glut of art might mean some works aren’t enjoyed to the same level they might have been. Yes, piracy is rampant and makes earning a living through art a bit more challenging. However, the sheer mind-boggling amount of art available to us, the ease of distributing it and the intense fan communities that would be impossible without the Internet make it an incredibly positive addition to our world. Happy 25th birthday, Internet.
Time for a relaxing evening with some Netflix.
—Jonathan Raeder
FOR WORSE
Go on Twitter the next time a big movie is released, album drops or TV show premieres. You won’t have to wait long; judgments are passed quickly and viciously in some cases. The hard work of an artist, actor or writer is accepted or dismissed in 140 characters or fewer. It’s who we are now as media consumers: just runners in a race to register the first opinion — and it’s killing pop culture.
Don’t get me wrong, the Internet is great. You’re reading this article online, and I love that. But for every door of discovery the Internet provides, it shuts another in the mind of the consumer. No matter how much we like to deny it, a lot of us base our viewing and listening habits on the opinions of our peers. But what happens when these reviews are only there to gain attention rather than to make valid points? We risk missing out on something we could enjoy or spend time on something that is supposed to be great but isn’t — all because of its instant Internet reputation. Another result of this bad behavior: People saying things such as “One Direction is the next Beatles” after their first hit. (That happened. It’s OK to cry.)
The root of evil here is the burning desire to be first, to be ahead of the curve. To be the fourth or fifth person to deem an album a masterpiece is to not register an opinion at all. It’s unoriginal. Don’t even bother tweeting your opinion of a movie that came out last year. It’s irrelevant. This makes for a shallow, sloppy viewing experience of art in any form.
While quick analyses have crippled media, really, really long ones have, too. The Internet is ripe with theories on all of our favorite TV shows and movies. But this can be a bad thing. Feel like ruining your childhood real quick? Go online and research conspiracy theories of shows you loved as a kid. (Again, don’t be afraid of your tears.)
Prediction theories are also dangerous. Sometimes they’re good enough to ruin what would probably be a nice surprise (looking at you, How I Met Your Mother) and sometimes they’re much better than what happens on screen, causing some disappointment in the actual sequence of events (the season finale of True Detective). Whatever the subject, overspeculation can interfere with truly enjoying the material.
Does the Internet really enhance the way we absorb the things we love? No, it simply stands in the way of us absorbing these movies, albums and TV shows as they were supposed to be shown: Stand-alone, carefully crafted pieces of work.
—Michael Errigo
