I’m beginning to think of this moment as The Dome. The Dome is an experiment, a discrete interval during which we’re subjects of a grand research project to determine what types of media will last and what types of media will die. Last week, I was trying to make my way through a list of dystopian 70s sci-fi movies and managed to get through Logan’s Run. In it, everyone lives inside a domed city in the 22nd century, completely unaware of what goes on outside the dome. The citizens live a coddled and hedonistic life, with all of their needs, especially entertainment, taken care of for them. But it was when, inside his apartment, Logan 5 summons Jessica 6 with a hand-held computer that I recognized the lazy satisfaction of being so completely entertained and the complacency of living inside the perfect observational conditions. This is The Dome, a stretch of time when shelter-in-place orders, now affecting half the planet, have created the ideal laboratory for media trials and measurements. In mid-March, The Dome was placed over us.
The response to the Covid-19 pandemic sealed us off, forced us inside and shoved those of us lucky enough to not have to travel for work even deeper into a push-button utopia of total entertainment and total convenience. The Dome is a little glass bump in time when existing media trends are magnified. I mean magnified in two senses. In one sense, during The Dome, the trends are made more severe. Viewership of user-generated video content is up, the kind you find on YouTube, Instagram and TikTok. Gaming usage is up by 75%. Streaming is obviously way up, by as much as 85% according to certain clever estimates. At the same time, TV ad revenue is way down, probably reflecting a current and continued shrinking number of cable subscriptions. Movie theater revenue, obviously, is collapsing, along with theme parks. And new paid subscription streaming services will have an even harder time breaking in now than before. Disney Plus, which requires a paid subscription and was launched last year, still lags way behind Netflix, YouTube, Amazon Prime Video and Hulu in viewership, despite having hugely recognizable and popular IP.
Quibi, which launched yesterday, may need to be free for more users for a longer period of time to compete with other new entrants like the upcoming Peacock, whose free version with ads could give it a pandemic advantage. But in another sense, I mean magnified as if under a microscope, blown up in size and examined more closely. Performance will be scrutinized. Results will be acted upon. We'll have learned a lot! We'll have learned, for instance, if people will pay premium prices to see new wide-release movies at home instead of in theaters. If studios might not need tentpole blockbusters like superhero movies. We'll have learned that Netflix original movies are probably worth keeping around. That you will definitely see a lot more documentary series like "Tiger King," and that people will actually find, watch and ostensibly enjoy the FX show "Dave." We'll have learned that there’s enough appetite for a new first-person-shooter game from Riot to drive the unreleased Valorant to the top of Twitch. And, hopefully, we'll have learned that Drake is not good.
The shorter stuff
Proud that I'd never heard of Arielle Charnas before this. (VF)
Dreams are trending, but why does no one want to talk about J.G. Ballard's The Drowned World? (TNYer)
Great. They're making "The Office" but Zoom. (Deadline)
Speaking of Zoom, the CEO cannot be serious with this background he used on CNN: the words "We Care" over a heart-shaped Earth. It's too on the nose! (CNN)
Of course the Lingua Franca founder is making a "Cuomo For President" sweater already. (NYT)
This will replace the end of the NBA regular season. (NYP)
Based on a series of paintings is a new one! (Variety)
Feel bad for this ill-timed "Normal People" billboard in SoHo. (Image)
Parents of high schoolers should be alerted by the authorities if their children click on this. (BI)
Deep in this piece, there is a rare usage of the nonsensical Hollywood jargon "five-quad." (Deadline)
Huge week for men: Deadpool arrived inside Fortnite and "Rick & Morty" announced its return. (Twitter) (Instagram)
The sound collage at the beginning of this week's Best Show with Tom Scharpling is coronavirus art, including Mike Francesa, Matthew McConaughey, Can and Suicide. (The Best Show)
The news that they're making a Call Me By Your Name sequel reminded me that I found it very hard to believe that Timothée Chalamet's 17-year-old character would be wearing a Talking Heads shirt in 1983. (Dazed)
Salon brought back the founder of their own web site only to explain the crackpot JFK assassination theories alluded to in the new Dylan song. My kind of content. (Salon)
Let this fucking awesome review of the Herbie Hancock classic Head Hunters by Jeremy D. Larson be a portal for you into Bennie Maupin. (Pitchfork)
Amanda Hess is on a roll. (NYT)