For the last few weeks, the Hollywood writers have been on strike. I won’t bore you with the details. Like all strikes it boils down to money. The writers feel they aren’t getting what’s owed to them, and the production companies want to hold onto as much sweet moola as possible. Normally I’m indifferent to strikes, but in this case, I am urging both sides to fight to the death. The writers shouldn’t give up a single commie cent and the production companies should drive the most rapacious bargain possible. If things go my way both sides lose and the entire industry self-destructs.
I know what’s lurking in your teeny tiny brain. How could I be so cruel? How could I drool at the prospect of media creatures losing their silly little jobs?
It’s easy. The current entertainment industry is a garbage industry. A garbage industry is one that we would be better off without.1 Garbage industries are depressingly common in the modern world. Facebook, (now Meta), is garbage. Twitter is garbage. TikTok, Instagram, and all their wannabes are garbage. Fast food restaurants are garbage. Cable TV is garbage. Cosmetics are garbage. Vast swaths of the processed food and pharmaceutical industries are garbage. Many insurance companies are garbage. The fashion industry is garbage. The diet industry, (please people get some self-respect), is a steaming pile of garbage. I could go on and on because we live in a wasteland people and not the wholesome T. S. Eliot version.
Suppose the Hollywood writers and their employers go away, and we’re faced with a world without media company entertainment. How could we possibly live in such a world? Easily. The crap Hollywood spews, union-made, or not, is easily replaced by good books; we all have long lists of actual classics to read. And, if reading isn’t your jam, there’s YouTube. None of my favorite Youtubers are affected by this strike, Sabine Hossenfelder, Dr. Becky, Economics Explained, Mathematical Visual Proofs, and many, many, more are still cranking out superb content that outclasses the dumbed-down-drivel the Hollyweirdos foist on us. I observed many years ago that the best bloggers are better writers, and cover more interesting topics, than mainstream journalists, and the same holds for the best YouTubers. That small talented and dedicated producers can do a better job than bloated self-satisfied billion-dollar companies may be shocking but look at the work. To paraphrase Flaubert, “The company is nothing, the product — all.”
If you are left with any doubts, I’m enjoying this strike. It has driven all the smug late-night clowns off the air; their minuscule minds cannot function without scripts. On my own, I wouldn’t waste a millisecond on the likes of Colbert, Kimmel, Meyers, and others but my wife enjoys their attempts at humor, so I’m occasionally exposed to their asinine Youtubery2 while sitting with her in the evenings. Silence is a lovely substitute for late-night. With luck, they will never come back.
Analyze the Data not the Drivel 