Cal Newport recently engaged with an article by Derek Thompson entitled Everything is Television. I came across Newport’s thinking via a recent podcast episode. Here’s the gist:
Last month, Derek Thompson published an intriguing essay that made waves in technology criticism circles. It was titled: “Everything is Television.” In today’s episode, Cal takes a closer look at this essay, unpacking and expanding Thompson’s arguments, and ultimately concluding with a series of predictions about what to expect next from the internet.
Both posts are worth a read and I’m not going to spoil the punchlines here. Give ’em a click and digest in full. They did trigger a burr that’s been itching me lately. As someone who was around when straight blogging took off, I’ve always been somewhat bemused about how much more successful podcasting has become. Even as curmudgeonly as I am, I subscribe to a decent number of podcast feeds, while admittedly listening to a small handful of episodes. I probably average fewer than five episodes a week, if that.
Still, the pivot to video is disappointing. The fact that a podcast is really a hosted YouTube or Twitch stream invariably shows through. The conversation inevitably snags on some visual element. Part of the reason I came to enjoy podcasts is that they were an intelligent form of radio that I could use mostly as background noise with occasional moments of insight.
Also, video requires higher costs and greater production value to be sustainable. So now episodes come with a heaping helping of “check out our livestream,” and “don’t forget to hit those like, subscribe, and share buttons.” 🤮 The drive to build a large enough audience to stay credible on YouTube, TikTok, and maybe The Socials (TM) is amplified.
Enough whinging. Like many things, I’ll stick with listening to podcast episodes despite my complaints. I’ve also been lucky not to hit (much) AI slop. At some point it’ll be “not for me,” and I’ll move on.
Bonus Ramblin’
Just some incoherent follow-up on the bigger issue Newport and Thompson are engaged with. Thompson’s definition of television is similar, but not the same, as the TV that I grew up with:
By “television,” I am referring to something bigger than broadcast TV, the cable bundle, or Netflix. In his 1974 book Television: Technology and Cultural Form, Raymond Williams wrote that “in all communications systems before [television], the essential items were discrete.” That is, a book is bound and finite, existing on its own terms. A play is performed in a particular theater at a set hour. Williams argued that television shifted culture from discrete and bounded products to a continuous, streaming sequence of images and sounds, which he called “flow.” When I say “everything is turning into television,” what I mean is that disparate forms of media and entertainment are converging on one thing: the continuous flow of episodic video.
If all media (Thompson), or “just” Internet media (Newport), collapse into television, there are some interesting dynamics. I find resonance with Newport’s idea that social media behemoths may fall by the wayside, as television doesn’t have the same social network lock-in. Alternatively, they might try to morph into the new form … and fail.
Also, from my personal experience, content bifurcates into two bins: one: high-priced live-event spectacles (sports, superstar concerts, breaking news); and two: an infinite, mostly undifferentiated catalog of on-demand narratives (everything else).
On the latter point, I’m probably not the only one to notice that the UX of many streaming services is frightfully similar. Sometimes I wonder if Netflix, Prime, Peacock, Paramount+, and Disney+ all paid a visit to the same design shop. Apple, of course, has to be different.
I’m not quite sure whether drop-in, screaming-head outrage generation (cable news, sports talk) deserves its own bin due to eminent disposability.
Lastly, we’ve seen that collapse into an undifferentiated mass with text on the web in general and print news in particular. It hasn’t gone very well.
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