The problem with content is that it erases the individual. In our pursuit for content we become cannibalistic and will take anything to remake it into what we perceive to be our own view or our own image but that’s farce. To take something so blatantly, copy it, recreate it, and redistribute it is a hollow process. Content creators are just selecting from a list of things they feel they need to have in order to have an oeuvre without the time and energy put in or the suffering to understand what something truly means. One might say well it took me a long time to complete this or do that and I’m not arguing that fact, what I am arguing is the authenticity of what’s created. How can hundreds of people on YouTube or elsewhere have similar looking videos and content and claim to be authentic? When you search anything look at the results and analyze how different those results really are. Sure everything looks pretty or falls into a category that says this is something, but what it all truly lacks is a personal authenticity that’s reflective of a human being and not someone who simple copied and pasted what came before them. We’re all guilty of it, that’s how we learn but that’s also why movies today all look the same, are shot the same etc. People haven’t found themselves and companies are content accepting what works. Tell me why no one is copying Guillermo del Toro style? Because he is authentic and his art is a reflection of that and it’s not easy to copy authenticity. I don’t think people truly understand themselves and seek to cover up for that fact by fitting in remaking art and that’s the rub, how can you make art of any kind unless you truly know yourself?
The argument against content is the argument of the dissolution of self. How can everyone be given the same experience? They can’t. You have to find your experience not be given it. The world has to stop selling experiences. Experiences are the unique ways we view something subjectively and that’s what art is subjective. If everyone is gifted the same experience in life are they truly experiences? Did they learn anything about themselves? No. There is no individuality anymore and it’s eating away at our society and at our art. I once asked myself where are all the Kathy Bates and Steve Buscemi’s? The people who stand out amongst the sea of look a-likes. I don’t know if they exist anymore or perhaps they’ve evolved and so should my expectations. But that sentiment is not me reaching into the wonder years and yearning for what was. We can’t find ourselves and embrace ourselves if we’re constantly clamoring to have what someone else has, save for rights, dignity, clothing, food, and shelter but that’s beside the point.
We’ve become so lost that any attack, comment, or conversation has become an attack on the self because we can’t distinguish ourselves from each other. Rationality has died and in its place is emotion that serves to entrench us further. It’s like American flags, they’re everywhere. Did a nation of so called strong patriots just suddenly forget themselves, forget what country they live in? If you have to keep shouting at the top of your lungs how strong or unique you are then you absolutely are not. The reverence for an American flag has dissolved so badly that it’s power as a symbol now means nothing. If the symbol meant something those who hung it wouldn’t have to tell you what it means. Content is the dissolution of the self and the dissolution of art. Without art, ideas are not challenged and everything become stagnant. I apologize if this comes off as any sort of rant. It is not.
Willy Wonka, Charlie, and Grandpa Joe enter the glass elevator. Charlie presses the one button Wonka has never pushed and the device rumbles to life. Anticipation and excitement beam across the faces of the occupants when suddenly the elevator heaves off leaving the floor and the occupants resting on the ground. Willy Wonka, Charlie, and Grandpa Joe stare bewilderingly up into the sky as the great glass elevator careens into the heavens never to be see again. The end.
What a vile response and a slight against any artisan who practices their craft. The vomit draft, the practice, all the effort that is where our humanity comes from, the technical parts completely matter. AI is destroying craft and destroying humanity by appealing to people who would brush aside the study of their art for a short cut to completion.
Also how can a website who speaks on the topics of film and the WGA strike in the same breath write an article about this nonsense. It comes off as incredible tone deaf.