A few weeks ago, I read a headline in The Guardian: “Is Netflix deliberately dumbing down TV so people can watch while scrolling?” I had to read the rest of the article, even though I knew that if a newspaper asks a question in the headline, it means it doesn’t know the answer—otherwise, the answer would be the headline. Also, theories about the complex manipulation of human behaviour by a company are usually exaggerations. Indeed, the article could not substantiate its premise. But no one disputes that people do scroll when they are watching something and that they are generally bored with both the “series” and what they are scrolling through. They are bored with the distraction as well as what is distracting them from that distraction.
How did entertainment get so boring?
It is the general view of people around me that there is nothing on TV. Just like before. These are people who do not take themselves too seriously, who are not ashamed to admit that they do not enjoy reading. They speak honestly. And they watch a lot of TV. They used to enjoy entertainment more, in a distant past they cannot pinpoint, but what they do know is that now they watch TV because there is nothing else they can do. Now and then, they do find something fascinating, but even that rare spark usually fades after the first episode or so, and then it’s all downhill.
So, what’s going on? Why is it that the entire world is desperate to waste time, and entire companies have sprung up to help them—spending billions—yet people say they are bored with streaming platforms?
At first glance, the answer may appear to be obvious: there is something wrong with “the content.” There is vast oversupply today. And maybe even good writers cannot be consistently good. And because film is a collaborative medium, many things can go wrong at various stages. And, since it is expensive and the stakes are so high, nobody wants to take a risk. Ultimately, nothing in the mainstream can be very good. And so on. There may be some truth to all these reasons, but I feel something else is at play. And it lies in the nature of entertainment itself.
I believe that entertainment is another form of boredom. After its first flush, it ceases to be entertaining, but we hold on because we want to escape from life and ourselves. Every new technology appears to solve the problem, but it only becomes a new way of boring us.
In December, I was in Barcelona, and I saw 300–400 people—locals, mostly—standing outside a building, simply gaping at it. I made some inquiries to find out what was going on. They were waiting for the building’s Christmas lights to come on. When the lights came on, it was nothing extraordinary. But here were some of the most expensive workers on earth, who value their time so much that they need illegal migrants to do a lot of tasks, waiting patiently for over 30 minutes to watch lights go on.
People have a lot of time, and they can be entertained very easily. But only very briefly. If it is a building that lights up once a year, they will stand and watch, especially if it is free. What is hard is sustaining their interest. That is why it seems that people do not have time for “anything”. People say they do not have time for movies or for series. One woman told me she watched my show on Netflix at 2x speed “just to get to the end.” People don’t have time for even cricket. People don’t have time for almost anything. It is as though they are all doing something great with their time. But the fact is they will stand and watch a building light up—if it is new, and free.
People are constantly looking to be entertained. It seems as though they are looking for newer and newer ways to be bored. And that is what is going to happen once virtual reality fulfils its grand promise of becoming “immersive reality,” (as though the real world is not immersive). I am confident that it will be impressive at first, but will become just another form of boredom.
I am open to technology wasting my time. I don’t want to give it any respectable names. I really want someone to take my time and waste it for me. And I am amazed that people are not able to do that.
The history of “immersive reality” is the same as the history of what bored us: In the beginning, we had reality, then some herbs, the magic of religion, then we got song, dance, theatre, novels, cinema and the internet, and now we have augmented reality. At every stage the new way of entertainment became a new way of getting bored.
Even drug addicts cannot escape the boredom of drugs. When I was young, I noticed that the most confusing thing about them was that they looked so bored. I was confused because I thought: You have gone through all this trouble, destroyed your lives, and ruined your parents—for fun—so at least have fun. But they looked dazed. They had a purpose. Only the addict has purpose, but after the first excitement, they had the same numbness as people scrolling.
All this time, we have treated boredom as something that needed to be solved. Yet, if there is a soul, or something that answers the question of who we are, it is unlikely to make its presence felt while we are being entertained. It surfaces, in truth, when we are somewhat bored, when we are with ourselves. And yet, for some reason, most of us have tried to abolish boredom— to cure it.
Maybe the best way to sustain entertainment is to make it slightly difficult. And now we arrive at the reason why art itself has endured. It’s a bit tough to consume and very real, like life. Ultimately, there can be no greater entertainment than watching a version of us, but one that is not told by us.
(Stay and read more pieces, until you get bored.)