Entertainment is a subject that has always interested me, both in terms of consuming it and thinking about it. It seems to be one of the basic necessities of life, yet it’s not clear why. We crave it and seek it out. We care enough about its quality to vent our frustrations and declare our joys online. Isn’t that interesting?

By “entertainment”, I am referring to all content available through large-scale print, electronic and audiovisual media that is consumed without any well-defined purpose (such as passing exams, training for jobs, etc.). Certain terms such as “infotainment” and “edutainment” try to defy this strict definition, but these are just subgroups within the general group. Yes, watching a YouTube video about black holes counts as entertainment, unless you are a physics major simply looking for more enjoyable study material.

Common complaints about the state of entertainment miss the mark

It is easy to fall into the contrarian-hipster mindset (thoughts such as “Oh, they don’t make good movies anymore” and “Nobody appreciates good art anymore”) and I have been guilty of it time and again. Not that it’s an unreasonable position to take. The problem with this type of thinking is its lazy and shallow nature, its tendency to label anything different as “bad” just because it doesn’t fit into the traditional mold.

Entertainment – how it is created, distributed, and consumed – has changed drastically within a surprisingly short period of time. The causes are worth examining and certainly deserve a deeper study than the stereotypical culprits routinely blamed by the contrarian-hipster: mediocre artists, uncultured audiences, and greedy corporations.

Quality is subjective, but let’s try to define a measure

Judging the quality of art is not a science, but we can invent an objective measure to be used for comparison. This artificially defined yardstick cannot be used to predict subjective experience: “high-quality” does not mean better, since that is up to the audience.

I propose to rank the quality of entertainment along three dimensions:

Hooking 😯: How good is it at drawing the audience in?

Holding 🧐 🤨: How well does it engage them meaningfully and hold their attention?

Provoking 🤔 😭 😠 😂: Does it provoke a significant reaction in the audience and make them think, even afterwards?

High-quality entertainment generally scores high on all three, although the hook can vary depending on audience tastes. Low-quality entertainment often has an excellent hook but does poorly in the other two areas. Both satisfy our need for entertainment, but through different mechanisms.

Breaking Bad is a widely acclaimed TV show that is an excellent example of slow, engaging, high-quality entertainment. It also happens to be one of my personal favorites.

On the other end of the spectrum is a very short YouTube clip that has a very accurate, non-clickbaity title. It is also one of my favorites.

Is the saga of Walter White better than an amusing 25 seconds of a horse’s life? Does it even make sense to compare them?

Low-quality content has become more commonplace in the mainstream

Low-quality entertainment has always been around. This is how people kept themselves entertained before the advent of communication technologies and mass media. But it never rose to prominence in the mainstream, large-scale market because the demand for it was too limited to justify the upfront investment cost. If people bought a ticket to go to the cinema, they expected to spend two hours absorbed in the film and spend the following week talking about the experience. This is not an expectation that can be fulfilled by low-effort, low-quality art.

The most noticeable trend has been rapid rise in the amount of low-quality content, without a similar increase (and maybe even a decline) in high-quality content. New technologies and money-making models have made it financially feasible to create vast amounts of content that doesn’t require an attentive and engaged audience. As this type of content has become more popular, high-effort high-quality content has become a riskier bet. The high investment no longer has a good chance of decent returns, since people no longer have high expectations and are therefore unwilling to pay a high upfront cost, unless big brand names (such as superhero movie franchises) are involved.

Entertainment has changed, but so have our expectations

What caused this shift? Technology has certainly played its role, by creating the channels where low-quality entertainment could be produced and consumed. But how did it start? Did consumers have a hidden desire for such content, which was discovered and exploited by producers who – thanks to advances in technology – finally had the means and incentives for doing so? Or did greedy producers intentionally create this trend to avoid taking creative risks and opting for the easy money?

This is largely a chicken-and-egg argument. How it started and who was responsible may be of academic interest. What we should acknowledge is that our tastes have changed as well.

What do you expect to find when you turn on the screen? These days it’s quite common to hear people complain that they cannot concentrate long enough to watch a movie or read a book, because they keep getting distracted or simply lack the time or energy needed. Books are even more susceptible to being discarded in favor of something less demanding.

The audience bias seems to favor shorter, less intensive forms of entertainment. If audience habits change, it is only natural that the supply will be affected. Gone are the days when people lined up in movie theatres and sat down together in front of the TV every week.

Supposedly low-quality content can also be thoughtful and provocative

Previously I wrote about the rise of passivism in mainstream entertainment and how it has become more commonplace. It is not clear if low-quality entertainment must necessarily be passive. There is a sizable portion of the industry (such as certain channels on YouTube and Facebook) where the entire business model is to rapidly churn out very low-effort, low-quality videos that people can watch while being on the toilet.

But there is no reason to be so pessimistic. People who complain about this new trend are missing the big picture. Lowering the entry cost allows entertainers to be more creative and experimental. Many of them might go after the easy money, but that would be nothing new. The cynical hipster-contrarian might see all new forms of media as plain cash grabs, but I beg to differ. Some of the most engaging and thoughtful content I have come across has been made possible by platforms such as YouTube and podcasts, which are known for low-quality content.

High-quality content isn’t going away

Those who fear that high-quality entertainment will cease to exist should rest easy. The two kinds of entertainment cater to different needs. The share of one may increase relative to the other, but it’s not likely to go away. High-quality content can take different forms, such as “bingeable” shows on Netflix that run for many more hours than a standard feature-length film. Low-quality content, just by its experimental nature, may also turn out to be just as engaging and provocative without the burden of big budgets or prodigious technical and artistic skills.