Ask Lemmy

All the stuff I enjoyed is gone, and everything they make now seems so empty and pessimistic now.

Eeeeeh. First of all, all the stuff you liked is still there.

But also good stuff is rare. You really need to know where to look and which tips to follow. For example, if you disregard anime as a whole, you've probably missed absolute 10/10 media experiences you can't find anywhere else. Sometimes it's about leaving your comfort zone and trying something new.

But then also, about the only really good star wars content we got in the last... 30 years is Ep. 3, the clone wars animated series (later seasons) and Andor. And they made SO MUCH.

Also, maybe you should make your own. If you like the old stuff so much, try to make it yourself and give it a spin. get close to it, recapture, reinterpret, re-imagine. Maybe you'll do that for 15 years, go back to your inspiration and find that your "imitation" has surpassed it.

Necessity is the mother of invention. If you're bored make your own.

You have all the blueprints for the stuff you like. What else are you going to do? You can watch reruns, of course... not sure if it will be equally satisfying though.

I feel the same, but I just have a nas for my movies so I can enjoy them forever. Most of the current new movies are full of bullshit so I also mostly watch older movies where humanity still exists. You have to start gathering movies like this on physical media or they just will be gone whenever the streaming service wants them to.

I run Linux so I dont need to update my computer.

I dont have Facebook or Instagram.

I use Freetube app on my computer instead of YouTube so I dont have to see shorts, or ads for that matter.

I use Newpipe on my phone for the same reason.

So you can do some things to stay away from bullshit.

If in doubt, raid the local used bookstore. Yeah, and do use uBlock Origin, Freetube as your YT front end, and maybe sail the high seas. Curate your entertainment.

I switch on the news and its 90% pure political propagandano matter the station.

I'm using Bluesky mainly as a newsfeed.

It’s really bad. As brains get smaller, the entertainment industry literally has to dumb everything down.

News was always political, but I agree, it's exhausting, and it was exhausting back then.

As for the memes, do you really think "It's over 9000" was any more comprehensible. I spent way too much time overthinking why that meme was funny, like "Oh, it's because the power levels grow exponentially over the course of the show and 9000 is such a ridiculously low number when it's all said and done." But nah I think it was just random. Then I started laughing at it cuz hehe funny reference. And what even was YouTube Poop, I mean it was the funniest stuff ever wrought by man (HI BILLY MAYES HERE WITH LOTSA SPAGHETTI FOR DINNER!), but don't kid yourself, nonsense was the whole point. Let the young'uns have their 67's.

Some of it's legit though. YouTube is enshittifying, it's the natural course of things when you have investors to please. That's also why games are crap now. But there were lowest common denominator adult video games as far back as the Atari 2600, so that's nothing new. Not saying its OK, just that nothing has changed and is unlikely to change in the future. Look for the good stuff that is out there. I'm having fun with Megabonk.

I also agree short form content can be straight up harmful. I just found out the other day you can turn off YouTube history which stops the algorithm from feeding you anything. On mobile you just get a blank search bar. It'll still bring up shorts when searching but if you scroll five or six shorts deep it'll just give you a blank screen that says "recommendations have been turned off." I turned it off because I realized I'd get up from my desk at work to go to the bathroom but spend a whole minute looking for a recommended video to listen to before actually leaving the room.

shows yes, they have gotten worst over the years. especially how heavy handed streaming has influenced which shows get released, how much budget, and limited the development is. plus the interference of the executive, showrunners, producers that force thier ulterior motive into the show, ruining it.

It's media being manipulated by megacorps to push whatever they want to cash in on. Also ads. Also also, you're getting old!

Great example would be music industry. If you listen to radio, you would notice that most of the modern music is just bunch of the same artists that are topping the charts. But there are also way more great artists that create music today that are unheard if your primary source of music is radio.

Enter Spotify (or at least how it used to be before 2022). Spotify would give you choice what to listen to. Would suggest artists that do similar music to what you like. It made discovering new artists very easy. For years 3 major labels were dictating what majority of people would listen to. But now people can finally chose what they like. And that is what makes Spotify so hard to drop, considering recent issues.

Same with movies. Not that there are no good movies or series out there. It is just what these mega conglomerates dictate on what is pushed to the masses. An insanely good indie movie has nothing near the budget to advertise itself as some meh-grade Disney flick can have.

I suggest to go off mainstream. Mainstream media is not where "it's at" anymore. Get into indie movies. Might be good to start checking some particular directors and their catalog.

Same goes to YT. I fucking love me some small content creators.

Games? - Single player, online/split screen co-op. Each year there are bunch of really good games are released. Indie genre now is the new hot way to play and enjoy games.

Do not go on mainstream meme subs. These suck. Find some small subs that offer meme experience. Eventually any sub that grows big entshittifies beyond repair.

News. This shit cant be avoided entirely. Maximum you can do is to minimize exposure to news. Do not scroll as much on your phone and use TV just for movies and series.

Worse. YouTube peaked around 2010s 100%. There's a lot of great content to find now, but you have to go digging.

Gaming is at an all time low, peoples standards have fallen off a cliff, games are made like shit. I think this is also because of how big and mainstream it is now too. There's so much money and manipulation in it.

For youtube you should use Revanced and the subscriptions feed. No ads, no garbage recommendations but just a small amount of effort.

I think movies are worse now, I may be getting old but I the time between "Wow, that was a great movie" seems to be getting longer.

On the other hand, TV shows are getting better, when I watched Firefly recently (don't kill me) it was good but not great while The Bear and Ted Lasso are just amazing.

Anime is also getting better, there are new animes that are great being released all the time. Chainsaw Man, Frieren, Solo Levelling, Delicious Dungeon and Dan Da Dan are all great picks that came out recently.

I feel like Steam is also really great these days, there's a bit of a downturn in AAA game quality but the indie scene is going strong. Slay the Spire, Hades and Balatro all came out semi recently. You're better served with getting some gaming recommendations since the catalog is so full of games that are worth playing you'll have to quit your job to actually get through them. I really would like to dump another 100 hours into Factorio to get through the Space Age DLC.

All in all, yeah, things are getting enshittified but there's still plenty of entertainment that's good being released every day.

I'm "only" 40 and I'm judging the shit out of you for having favorite YouTubers. YouTube is for how-to's and music videos only. Following someones vlog just seems really pathetic to me.

But advertising has always been a thing. Even in the pre TV days. Thinking of ralphie from a Christmas story here, with his decoder ring telling him to drink Ovaltine.

Even if you're ancap, consuming ancap material like fallout, and the outer worlds is still capitalism and marketing. Hell, YouTube and tiktok etc are essentially JUST marketing unless you're searching for something specific.

Yes it has definitely gotten worse. I haven't seen anything good at the cinemas or on TV for a long time.

The last movie I really liked was Nightcrawler. The last TV show I got into was Better Call Saul.

Where are all the artists these days? They seem to have been replaced by people who only know how to churn out the same repetitive boring dribble?

Artists are being treated worse, that is for sure, why do the details of if artists can still manage to create equally good art as we begin to treat them worse and worse matter? I don't know if I want artists to be capable of that past a certain point as it just ends up worse for artists anyways when they do this and normalize even worse treatment of their profession.

It’s absolutely getting worse. Across every spectrum.

Listen, leave my mundane activity sims the fuck alone

Yes, TV has gotten worse. When I was a kid, a 90 minute movie had one ad in the middle, if it was longer, there were usually two. Recently I saw TV after god knows how many years and there was an ad every 10 minutes.

And yes, the really short content sucks because it damages the attention span. But it's a trend, it's not like it started with this generation, our attention is attacked constantly and has been for a while.

I wouldn't hate on brain rot that much, sure, it's stupid, but hey - you had your own stupid thing when you were young, as did every other generation.

Steam generally shows you what they think will interest you, I don't see any gooner porn there, that one might be on you.

Yes, you're getting old, yelling at clouds. Not a bad thing as long you don't make others feel bad because of it.

I stick to ad-free platforms, either by paying it or using alternative ways, books, single player games, and Spotify without ads.

We are in a shitty point of society and all we can do is brace ourselves and do conscious choices that pull us out of this algorithm riddled internet.

It's tough though. Lots of times I wake up and the first thing I do is open media to see if there are any tragedies or worldwide events going on, and then when I notice it... oops! There goes 30 minutes away of your life doomscrolling on Reddit/media... I just shut it all down when I notice it and go back to my routine. Trying to make a habit of it, but it is hard

I'm here to offer no answers, but a few fun activities that help me get out of that same mood. I feel you.

• Play some DOOM WADs. It's December, the Cacowards are here, and it's a beautiful time of the year to play through some of the most revered levels and mods. Pretty pure if you remember that the original devs open-sourced the engine, the community then built many source ports and now continues to churn out all levels of quality of mods and levels.
• Read some books. Feels bizarre and unusual these days to consciously choose something slower and ad-free and intentional, with nothing to interrupt you (per the power of the medium alone, alone). Not to mention the endless choice of genres and works to choose from. The bonus here is writing stuff yourself, which has a super low barrier of entry.
• Play THE FINALS. It's been going well for over 8 seasons now and offers the most unique FPS experience so far with its core gamemode and some twists on staple mechanics. As a long-term Counter-Strike player and a massive FPS enjoyer, this one is a breath of fresh air in so many ways.

That's on top of other wonderful suggestions in this thread.

But I think the most important would be to learn when to slow down and step away from the attention- and data-hungry apps and sites and whatever.

You're conflating several points here.

Things change. Focus and platform and format and emphasis change.

But also, late stage capitalism is ruining everything.

I still enjoy watching and discovering a lot of stuff that I missed growing up. I'm literally searching for Stargate DVDs right now because I never watched it all the way through. But also, brainrot can be fun, modern depth is just as depth as older depth, with similar rates of rarity. Meaning, it's there, but lots of other stuff mixed in.

So yeah, you are getting old. But only because of your inflexibility to adapt to newer methods and models and stuff. Take the best from the old, and try the new and find the good stuff. That's what I've always historically done anyway. Because if you do that, over time, let's say you get desperate in a drought. Then you just lower your standards a little bit and end up planning on watching things like buffy or sg1 in 2026.

And maybe, just maybe, those things, while problematic of their eras, may have otherwise been way ahead of their time or you'll grow to appreciate them long after their time. Take breaks, come back in a decade or two and try again and maybe it'll be better or worse. There's no wrong answer, even if you're getting old. Especially if you're getting old.

Also, complaining, while valid, is also not as productive as finding things to be passionate about. For example, I just played through the original turok on pc. That game is wayyyy better than I was told it was when I was a kid. And now that I've played it, I can say stuff like "games these days, while fun, are missing X or really could incorporate Y to be even better".

Tldr: getting old. But also kinda worse. A lot of it is perspective and how you get around whatever era's issues.

Oh right, there is one more factor to consider. As you get older, you DO get wiser and more experienced. Stuff stops being aimed at you, and in a lot of ways, I've found society not catering to me because I'm expensive compared to the dumb kids of today who don't know any better.<- now take this, and think about it from an older person's perspective, where YOU are dumb kid.

Now, go out and touch grass. It really is better and will make you feel better. It usually works for me.

Oh, it's not either/or.

I don't watch ads, and I have been watching all sorts of great TV and movies. You just know how to find it and where to get it.

For tv shows and movies:

Older content is rapidly disappearing/getting less accessible. Especially non english content. Shout out to do your part in legally archiving digital media from public libraries.

At the same time new media is pushed build on Existing mega franchises, everything is the same format with the same formula with no higher goal then the profit-margin.

online: is a different story because google owns it. They decide how youtube presents content to users, what do’s and don’ts get punished or get you recommended more.

Again no goal higher then the profit margin,1 ad for a 30 minute video is not as efficient as 1 every so many shorts. And because shorts are more random and your just consuming the flos its harder to tell the ads apart.

Because shorts are optimised on phone, google also rules how 50% of people use their phone it pushes more people to this more exploitative and less ad blockade device.

Good content still exists, its just a lot harder to find because promoting it is less profitable.

Their is a word for this kind of things falling apart to chase profit. Its enshitification.

I cut the cord from cable TV over a decade ago and never went back. It was getting bad then; I can't imagine how bad it is now.

A lot of the YouTubers from the 2010's are gone, but I've found enough new ones to justify getting YouTube Premium to skip the ads. I don't engage in individual videos, but I follow a set where YouTube can figure out what I want and I make sure to not watch any alt-right videos. I also subscribe to Dropout and Nebula, which shows the kind of videos I watch.

I've limited my news consumption to the Economist. It is expensive, but the bias is pretty muted in American News.

But overall, what we're seeing is a race to the bottom on all media. It used to be that media took up valuable space, either in physical space or bandwidth. Now, the cost is media space is near zero, so there is a drive to the bottom where that never existed a generation ago.