Divining The Future Of Television

Really enjoyed this piece from Sarah Ullman on Diving the Future of Television - a reconciliation of Youtube versus Traditional TV. The breakdown under "The True Answer" subsection is a rather eloquent way of describing the two beasts. I'll include the full two paragraphs here for posterity:

Television is a troubadour with two faces, each adorned with a drama mask: one happy (the half-hour comedy) and one sad (the hour-long drama). We invite Television into our homes to tell tales of Khaleesi, cartoon-yellow families from Springfield, and Festivus. On these nights, we recline, flip channels, and enjoy, soothed by the well-worn rhythms of the story. Now happy, now sad, now happy.

YouTube is an algorithmic search oracle: seek and ye shall find. Visit YouTube, and the cursor blinks in an empty search YouTubebar, waiting to answer your question. The YouTube oracle is a hydra with infinite faces as diverse as the infinite varieties of human emotion: happy and sad, yes, but also vlogs, haul videos, ASMR, unboxings, and no-scope kill montages.

It's a bit humbling to think that my generation was the last to have the limited television options and overly structured storytelling because of required commercial breaks. But the article makes a great point that both entities need each other to evolve and change. That can't be a bad thing (can it?).

via KK