Unpopular Entertainment Opinions • Page 480

There is definitely a lot to that. Bad behavior is always there but the extent of it depends on the reception you are going to get to it.

Andy Warhol said that one day everyone would be famous for 15 minutes and that is the goal for these people. The idea of being a social media influencer didn't exist when I was in high school so for me it was my band or for other people it was sports or acting or whatever.

 

We're also losing a sense of privacy and boundaries, if someone made a video of me without my consent I'd kms

 

I think it’s related that this generation (and people in 2025 in general) read far less than any previous generation, and my potentially hot take/unpopular opinion is that everyone of all generations should read more actual books. It’s an activity that requires concentration, introspection, and using your brain actively in a way that even movies and TV don’t, and especially online “content” doesn’t.

but it also seems people across generations in 2025 are largely content with simple content that exists within/reinforces their existing bubbles and beliefs, and are reluctant to explore or actively hostile to works of any medium that require a bit more active intellectual engagement/consideration.

My related and potentially hotter/more unpopular take is that nostalgia should generally be actively resisted in the media/art we consume. I don’t mean works that explore/interrogate nostalgia thematically (stuff like Mad Men, the Fabelmans, In Search of Lost Time), but the stuff made explicitly to capitalize on nostalgia (reboots/remakes/endless Star Wars and superheroes). I went to the Death Cab/Postal Service anniversary tour, I rewatch favorite movies and shows sometimes, and I occasionally listen to contemporary blink-182, so I’m not saying there’s no room for it in one’s media diet. But a lot of “content” based on existing IP or built around past works doesn’t have to work any harder than showing their audience a representation of the thing they remember fondly, and it doesn’t ask for any engagement from the audience to think or reflect about how they and the world are changing. It’s just “here’s a new version of the old thing that means something to you”. It seems like that’s a significant part of the Minecraft movie’s success, which ties back to people going to see that movie not just for nostalgia, but also to create and film a viral moment that will get them likes online. Art and privacy (including art and our private, personal relationship to it) have been devalued while “content” and social media have been elevated to overtake and dominate them.

I ended up thinking out loud a bit more than I meant to, my bad if it’s a little rambling.

 

It definitely feels more like work to watch something challenging than to just get in bed after work and watch TikTok on my phone. I was excited for Miguel Gomes' new film to come out on streaming but I didn't jump into it after a work day because I knew it would be more strenuous than watching a guy falling down.

 

I really enjoy cape shit, which regularly puts me in or adjacent to “fandom” spaces. And, I regularly find myself more and more aligned with people who see “fandom” and “nostalgia” as, to some degree, intrinsically conservative/reactionary and uncurious. Came up for me last week when a specific popular superhero comic writer was observed being uncomfortably close to far right conservatives, in where he let himself be interviewed and who he follows/reposts.

When my brain goes to that place, I regularly go to the mewithoutYou song “Blue Hen,” which is about growing old and mortality but also touches on that briefly. Specifically, I’m obsessed with the line “Is it too much to ask to reproduce the past?”

(Could also probably apply the line “prancing around the stage at your advancing age” to returning actors to these franchise films, but also… that shit has hit real good for me before and will likely do so again, lol; idk!)

 

I only follow maybe 3-4 parent influencers, since becoming a parent, and they all block out their kids faces if they ever appear

 

The idea of making ~online content~ out of one’s children makes me so uncomfortable that, if a video with a kid shows up in my TikTok feed, I often skip it immediately. Just something so fundamentally unhealthy and gross about that to me, even in relatively innocuous instances.

 

I just can’t imagine the kids that grow up with influencer parents who think it’s normal to have cameras rolling regularly throughout the day, always generating content. There’s no way that is healthy.

 

If an influencer family has a dedicated page regularly showing their children, I think that's gross. If someone just randomly catches their kid doing something funny/stupid and just posts a single video I don't really care

 

I’ve probably said it a bunch before, but Glee really ruined fandoms in a way I don’t think we can come back from. Fandom got them to take the Brittany and Santana relationship seriously and then both parties didn’t see that that was the exception to the rule. Fandom was never supposed to directly interact with the people involved in the art. “Shipping” was never about things being canon, it was just about fun. Now there’s a delusional level of entitlement with fans crossing serious lines. A few years ago there was an incident of someone tracking down and calling an actor from Supergirl’s grandparent to find ask about their ethnicity. Social media has eliminated the wall between fan and creator and I think the negatives of that seriously outweigh the few positives

 

Definitely. That's why I'm totally fine with celebrities not engaging with fans on social media. Even someone that was once as online as Chappell Roan, who built their fanbase on social media, eventually sees that people just don't know how to act when they're given a crumb of access.

 

I just can’t imagine being the kind of person that thinks people don’t deserve any amount of privacy

 

The Chernobyl-level internet meltdown when The Last Jedi tried to take a beloved IP and use it thoughtfully about grown-up issues was the canary in the coal mine that all media literacy and adult art was doomed.

 

I will say there are some great YouTubers. I love how David Bennett breaks down complex music theory into examples I can actually understand. I think Jon Bois is one of the truly great artists of this generation.

But so much of YouTube, TikTok, and really even podcasts is so aggressively amateur. There's almost never any deep analysis, carefully considered writing, visual craft, etc. Just theater kid improve mugging and hours-long rambling off-the-cuff. I love the democratization of art. Everyone should have some expression outlet. But when it's the vast majority of what we consume? I genuinely think it makes us worse.

 

What about YouTube essays

Not judging or anything, I once avoided everything you guys are complaining about but lockdown hit so hard I feel into a rabbit hole of influencers from all social media for a few years, and a lot of it ultimately was superficial. Sometimes I wonder what I could’ve done with my time instead but you live and learn