Entertainment Options

The recent Netflix debacle and corporate tomfuckery is on such a massive scale of stupidity that I have to stop and reflect on a subject that I should never have to think about. This is the subject of entertainment.

I cancelled my Netflix membership, and I did that on the spur of the moment. Do I regret this move? Fuck no. Netflix should regret losing me as a customer. But I have to consider whether or not losing the ability to watch all those movies and TV shows is a loss. I asked myself a serious question. Do I really enjoy watching movies?

If the movie is something like Pulp Fiction, the answer is yes. I think that movie is the greatest ever made. But it is the exception. Most of the movies made today are CGI-infused eye candy smorgasbords of overwrought action, bad acting, and shitty endings aiming less for catharsis than establishing the franchise in order to milk more money from an unaware and stupid public who think that maybe--MAYBE--in the five to six sequels they will watch there might be a decent movie in there. I despise this shit. Cinematic evil has a name, and it is Michael Bay.

Movies largely suck. Television does not suck. It used to suck really bad. Then, it got better. It got way better than movies. This is because with limited budgets and more time to develop stories and characters, TV shows got better especially the ones on HBO and Showtime. Shows like The Wire are not compared to other shows. The only thing that comes close is the novel. Watching that show was almost the identical experience I get from reading a really good story like The Count of Monte Cristo. You end up coming back to it again and again. Unfortunately, there not many shows on this level.

People ask me on Facebook what I was going to do in a post-Netflix world. My answer was simple. I was going to read books. The bulk of movies suck, so I'm not missing anything there. The best TV shows are like the books I like to read. It seems to me that the answer to my entertainment dilemma is to go back to real entertainment which is the novel.

The last movie I watched was Inception which was decent if complicated as a story. I was not satisfied at the end. This is because you can't tell a decent story in two hours. It would have made a better book. The fact is that all movies and television shows would work better as novels. I can't think of a single movie that was as good as or better than the book except Fight Club.

The upside of the visual medium is that it affords a shared experience. I meet few who have read Monte Cristo or even have read a book outside of school. But I meet a lot of people who watch Dexter. That is a great show. I will continue to watch that show, but I think it would be cheaper to buy the DVDs than continue with the Netflix tomfuckery. One season costs $30 on the Walmart website. This is what I was paying per month with the Netflix DVD/streaming split. That show is about the only thing I cared to watch on the site.

Is there anything to take away from this? The best option is to go with print and gear the bulk of your entertainment time towards reading. This will give you a better experience.

The other really cool thing I have found is the documentaries page on Reddit. I have starred many of those selections for later viewing because I don't have the time to watch all the good selections there. I watch a lot of science and history stuff.

People recommend piracy as another great avenue. The problem with piracy is that you end up downloading shit you wish you hadn't like Stuxnet. I don't see piracy as stealing because I don't believe in IP. But I would prefer to get it from the source than a secondhander which is why the original creator will always have a competitive advantage.

I think the answer for me here is a minimalist answer. Just go with books and eschew the videos except what I find on Reddit or television. This may lead to "minimalist regret" which I will write on later. Life is filled with regrets, so if I miss some great movie, I will live. But the fact is that I am missing a lot of great books, but I don't know about it because no one reads and tells me what I am missing. I'm just going to simplify this part of my life to make it better.

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