I think it's more that people can't take things seriously anymore. We all know this. Sincerity has been cringe for a long time. Ads which stick to traditional storytelling formulas are too direct, too on the nose, trying too hard to get your attention. Hence uncool.
"What they respond to — in a way that I don’t — are images of glamor and cameos by celebrities. The appearances of celebrities, as well as the glimpses of dazzlingly-wonderful lives, seem to belong to a different paradigm — the paradigm of the voyeur where the thrill comes not from substituting oneself into the hero’s journey but from the odd, twitchy fascination of seeing a world that is very real but that one will never have direct access to."
Feels very Brave New World. Bright glittering images. Social media as Soma. Lack of reading or intellectual curiosity. A wasteland of hollow mediocrity amidst the closing minds of America's youth. Perhaps the growing signals that we're preparing for AI/robot takeover. If not literally then symbolically.
Fantastic article. My last job covered measuring ad effectiveness, so this gave me pause for thought. I think voyeur culture is a product of the drive for memorability.
Thinkers like Byron Sharp, who preach that the only thing that matters is being front of mind, have become very popular. In this way of viewing marketing, celebrities become a very quick and easy way of catching audience’s attention and making them remember the ad. Ads with celebrities (esp. in the visuals) that I tested tended to over-perform for recognition.
As for why it is supplanting storytelling - it is a response to a wider oversaturation. People are exposed to so many ads on so many topics that many (esp. younger people) just switch off. Celebrities break this circuit by activating a parasocial impulse. I suspect it also reconstructs the social media viewing experience, just as older ads felt like you were watching TV. On that media point, with YouTube etc you are often trying to squeeze your 30-60 second ad into a 6 second placement. That’s much easier with a celeb (you just show them) while an actual story is much harder / less flexible.
I suspect that this semantic breakdown is going to continue as peoples’s media usage becomes more and more fragmented and choppy (I.e. watching 15 second videos on TikTok for an hour vs watching an hour of TV)
Yeah it's interesting (ahd scary) to ponder what happens when most of a generation can't handle focusing on 200, 300 pages. Aka books become obsolete. We're not far from that now.
Totally. Books are trying to adapt to shorter attention - chapters are shorter, authors more regularly insert quotable exposition sentences. But I wonder (optimistically) whether bite sized writing will mature. Maybe short stories will continue to grow as an art form? Or serialised novels could make a comeback? We still hunger for stories.
Voyeur culture is clever and seems pretty spot on given the popularity of the 'influencer' and the 'reality star.' I do think it's a sign of a creeping nihilism in pop culture, where earnestness and endeavor are eschewed for niche gimmicks and what amount to cheap parlor tricks.
It's a result of streamlining, get to the punchline quicker, get 'em to the cash register, convert eyeballs to transactions with no friction. Corporations and entertainment target our lowest common denominator which is the biological desire for dopamine.
Even though thoughtful media doesn't dominate the zeitgeist, I hope it finds a vibrant, dedicated corner of the world (or internet) to thrive. Great piece!
"I do think it's a sign of a creeping nihilism in pop culture, where earnestness and endeavor are eschewed for niche gimmicks and what amount to cheap parlor tricks."
This is really more of the core of the situation. Big-budget ads, especially during the Superbowl, have been trending more and more absurdist for years. "Puppy Monkey Baby" was 2016, and there's examples as far back as I can remember. I think the problem is that advertisers caught on to the "if you can't make them remember your product for something good, at least they'll remember you for how weird it was".
If advertising is selling a story, the current popular trope is "wtf?", and I think it's mostly a product of my generation's nihilism and disillusionment with, well, everything. Sincerity is cringe. I think that's slowly changing, but it's likely got a few cycles left in it.
Interesting, degrading, perverse. Reality hunger feeds into Andreessen’s metaverse privilege, maybe as cope for the exorbitant inequalities of our world. Though, exhibitionism and voyeurism seem to be digital réinventions of production and consumption.
But why bother telling a story when you can just throw a ton of money around and get celebrities right next to your brand? It's not advertising. Advertising might shed some brand awareness or drive a customer to take action.
I proposed a simple idea of limiting production budgets for Superbowl ads to a modest $20K. If you're confident enough to spend $8M on the airtime, you can find a creative way to make $20K work hard enough to fill that airtime with something memorable.
I was just as shocked as you to see how cringeworthy the commercials were this year. I don't think it's a deliberate dissolution of craft or wit but rather an absence of talent, mise-en-scene, and dramaturgy--they looked like D-grade film school assignments. The Super Bowl means nothing to me. But I always look forward to the range of commercial talent on offer each year. I think back on last year's BMW ad with Christopher Walken, a clever idea that worked! Incidentally, my favorite commercial of all time was this 1970 VW paragon of pith: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFhK4lpqcnY
I'm with Julie below -- none of the so-called reality stuff is real. I'm a sucker for shows like "Alone," but I'm constantly irritated by obvious contradictions in the underlying story. Give me "Deadwood" or "The Wire" any day over the pseudo-reality tripe.
Brilliant analysis. The irony (?? tragedy? horror?) is that celebrity “culture” and IG feeds aren’t REAL. Not in the way that the real, physical world and the world of imagination are real. It’s all smoke and mirrors. I hold to Salmon Rushdie’s argument that magic realism is a more true form of reality than nonfiction. I’m devastated that we’ve shifted from storytellers to voyeurs. To give up our active purpose, in favor of passivity, is deeply disturbing.
I’ve always been a little skeptical of the whole Joseph Campbell thing, but it had a good run. I wonder whether most people have always tended to the voyeuristic, but a way to scratch that itch just wasn’t available to them for a variety of reasons (modesty, etc.).
I missed the Super Bowl (again), but someone did point me to Nike’s attempt to hitch their languishing brand to the surge in women’s sports in the U.S. Seems to me their ad has both celebrities (athletes) _and_ story, told in a kind of poem recited by the narrator over Led Zep’s “Whole Lotta Love” (a band who used to be reluctant to license their music).
The only question with this ad is how effectively its imagery (retro black and white) and message connect to the Nike brand in the minds of the right demographic, as presumably the game is watched mostly by middle-aged men.
At $8 mil for 30 seconds, that’s $16 mil to Fox for this ad, plus production costs. Go big or go home.
What a true and disheartening reflection Sam. In many philosophical and spiritual traditions, the human imagination is often seen as deeply connected to the soul. I fear the conclusion this suggests!
I have a family friend who worked at a streaming service and he said any show or movie that was based on something that already existed did, on average, 10x the numbers of something original. Referentiality seems to be the starting point now. If you're starting from scratch, whether it's in a movie or a commercial, you're doomed.
At the Frankfurt Book Festival last year, there was a consistent stream of disillusioned foreign rights agents who worked for Netflix and the like; they said most of the time, big conglomerates just buy out the rights to any and all books that might look good on a screen, and then never make the show, thus owning the majority of the author's work for who knows how long until the author is maybe asked to write a sequel because THE NEXT ONE will be the one! On the other side of the coin, so long as writers play that game, the game will be shite. At some point, principles have to take precedent once more.
I think it's more that people can't take things seriously anymore. We all know this. Sincerity has been cringe for a long time. Ads which stick to traditional storytelling formulas are too direct, too on the nose, trying too hard to get your attention. Hence uncool.
Kanye's Super Bowl ad last year got it right...
"What they respond to — in a way that I don’t — are images of glamor and cameos by celebrities. The appearances of celebrities, as well as the glimpses of dazzlingly-wonderful lives, seem to belong to a different paradigm — the paradigm of the voyeur where the thrill comes not from substituting oneself into the hero’s journey but from the odd, twitchy fascination of seeing a world that is very real but that one will never have direct access to."
Feels very Brave New World. Bright glittering images. Social media as Soma. Lack of reading or intellectual curiosity. A wasteland of hollow mediocrity amidst the closing minds of America's youth. Perhaps the growing signals that we're preparing for AI/robot takeover. If not literally then symbolically.
Fantastic article. My last job covered measuring ad effectiveness, so this gave me pause for thought. I think voyeur culture is a product of the drive for memorability.
Thinkers like Byron Sharp, who preach that the only thing that matters is being front of mind, have become very popular. In this way of viewing marketing, celebrities become a very quick and easy way of catching audience’s attention and making them remember the ad. Ads with celebrities (esp. in the visuals) that I tested tended to over-perform for recognition.
As for why it is supplanting storytelling - it is a response to a wider oversaturation. People are exposed to so many ads on so many topics that many (esp. younger people) just switch off. Celebrities break this circuit by activating a parasocial impulse. I suspect it also reconstructs the social media viewing experience, just as older ads felt like you were watching TV. On that media point, with YouTube etc you are often trying to squeeze your 30-60 second ad into a 6 second placement. That’s much easier with a celeb (you just show them) while an actual story is much harder / less flexible.
I suspect that this semantic breakdown is going to continue as peoples’s media usage becomes more and more fragmented and choppy (I.e. watching 15 second videos on TikTok for an hour vs watching an hour of TV)
Yeah it's interesting (ahd scary) to ponder what happens when most of a generation can't handle focusing on 200, 300 pages. Aka books become obsolete. We're not far from that now.
Totally. Books are trying to adapt to shorter attention - chapters are shorter, authors more regularly insert quotable exposition sentences. But I wonder (optimistically) whether bite sized writing will mature. Maybe short stories will continue to grow as an art form? Or serialised novels could make a comeback? We still hunger for stories.
Voyeur culture is clever and seems pretty spot on given the popularity of the 'influencer' and the 'reality star.' I do think it's a sign of a creeping nihilism in pop culture, where earnestness and endeavor are eschewed for niche gimmicks and what amount to cheap parlor tricks.
It's a result of streamlining, get to the punchline quicker, get 'em to the cash register, convert eyeballs to transactions with no friction. Corporations and entertainment target our lowest common denominator which is the biological desire for dopamine.
Even though thoughtful media doesn't dominate the zeitgeist, I hope it finds a vibrant, dedicated corner of the world (or internet) to thrive. Great piece!
"I do think it's a sign of a creeping nihilism in pop culture, where earnestness and endeavor are eschewed for niche gimmicks and what amount to cheap parlor tricks."
This is really more of the core of the situation. Big-budget ads, especially during the Superbowl, have been trending more and more absurdist for years. "Puppy Monkey Baby" was 2016, and there's examples as far back as I can remember. I think the problem is that advertisers caught on to the "if you can't make them remember your product for something good, at least they'll remember you for how weird it was".
If advertising is selling a story, the current popular trope is "wtf?", and I think it's mostly a product of my generation's nihilism and disillusionment with, well, everything. Sincerity is cringe. I think that's slowly changing, but it's likely got a few cycles left in it.
That Seal ad was like a terrible nightmare!
Interesting, degrading, perverse. Reality hunger feeds into Andreessen’s metaverse privilege, maybe as cope for the exorbitant inequalities of our world. Though, exhibitionism and voyeurism seem to be digital réinventions of production and consumption.
But why bother telling a story when you can just throw a ton of money around and get celebrities right next to your brand? It's not advertising. Advertising might shed some brand awareness or drive a customer to take action.
I proposed a simple idea of limiting production budgets for Superbowl ads to a modest $20K. If you're confident enough to spend $8M on the airtime, you can find a creative way to make $20K work hard enough to fill that airtime with something memorable.
https://dtpennington.com/a-proposal-for-superbowl-ads/
I was just as shocked as you to see how cringeworthy the commercials were this year. I don't think it's a deliberate dissolution of craft or wit but rather an absence of talent, mise-en-scene, and dramaturgy--they looked like D-grade film school assignments. The Super Bowl means nothing to me. But I always look forward to the range of commercial talent on offer each year. I think back on last year's BMW ad with Christopher Walken, a clever idea that worked! Incidentally, my favorite commercial of all time was this 1970 VW paragon of pith: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFhK4lpqcnY
I'm with Julie below -- none of the so-called reality stuff is real. I'm a sucker for shows like "Alone," but I'm constantly irritated by obvious contradictions in the underlying story. Give me "Deadwood" or "The Wire" any day over the pseudo-reality tripe.
Brilliant analysis. The irony (?? tragedy? horror?) is that celebrity “culture” and IG feeds aren’t REAL. Not in the way that the real, physical world and the world of imagination are real. It’s all smoke and mirrors. I hold to Salmon Rushdie’s argument that magic realism is a more true form of reality than nonfiction. I’m devastated that we’ve shifted from storytellers to voyeurs. To give up our active purpose, in favor of passivity, is deeply disturbing.
I’ve always been a little skeptical of the whole Joseph Campbell thing, but it had a good run. I wonder whether most people have always tended to the voyeuristic, but a way to scratch that itch just wasn’t available to them for a variety of reasons (modesty, etc.).
I missed the Super Bowl (again), but someone did point me to Nike’s attempt to hitch their languishing brand to the surge in women’s sports in the U.S. Seems to me their ad has both celebrities (athletes) _and_ story, told in a kind of poem recited by the narrator over Led Zep’s “Whole Lotta Love” (a band who used to be reluctant to license their music).
The only question with this ad is how effectively its imagery (retro black and white) and message connect to the Nike brand in the minds of the right demographic, as presumably the game is watched mostly by middle-aged men.
At $8 mil for 30 seconds, that’s $16 mil to Fox for this ad, plus production costs. Go big or go home.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0Ezn5pZE7o
What a true and disheartening reflection Sam. In many philosophical and spiritual traditions, the human imagination is often seen as deeply connected to the soul. I fear the conclusion this suggests!
Thank you Kimberly. I think it’s really a tragic development.
I have a family friend who worked at a streaming service and he said any show or movie that was based on something that already existed did, on average, 10x the numbers of something original. Referentiality seems to be the starting point now. If you're starting from scratch, whether it's in a movie or a commercial, you're doomed.
At the Frankfurt Book Festival last year, there was a consistent stream of disillusioned foreign rights agents who worked for Netflix and the like; they said most of the time, big conglomerates just buy out the rights to any and all books that might look good on a screen, and then never make the show, thus owning the majority of the author's work for who knows how long until the author is maybe asked to write a sequel because THE NEXT ONE will be the one! On the other side of the coin, so long as writers play that game, the game will be shite. At some point, principles have to take precedent once more.
That’s the most depressing thing I’ve heard this side of a Ted Gioia post. That’s so sad to realize.
Much to fight back against these days