As more and more of us turn to ‘streams’ to get our entertainment – and information – content there has been a stronger and stronger pushback from the creative and collecting sides of things. What was once looked at as a great convenience, to turn to a stream for movies and shows, has become the starting death knell for the preservation of culture.
You may think that a bit of an overstatement but let me explain.
I have mentioned it in the past but I’ll mention it again – I worked a couple stints over the years at a collectibles store that sold records, books, and odds and ends. As I worked there I started to marvel at all the comics, the books, and the records they had. SO many that when I initially started my task was to clean out a back warehouse that had had water damage. I had to throw away books from the late 1800s and early issues of famous comics. It had gotten so badly damaged from water. And you start to realize as you are throwing this stuff away that a lot of it will soon be forgotten to the world.
I REALLY felt that with the books and the music.
They had THOUSANDS of records and probably one percent of those made it to other, more modern mediums. Think of whatever indie band you love that never quite caught on and it feels wrong and tragic that they never reached past what they did. Then you realize that someday all of their records and CDs and tapes will disappear and in ten years, twenty years, fifty years no one will ever know they ever existed.
Sure, something may survive.
Somewhere.
But for all intents and purposes, they are gone.
Now, I have no illusion thinking that my own books will last far beyond my death, but I am also not on the same level as the things I am talking about.
I am talking about big band records that people adored.
Regional folk albums that were the inspiration for a future performer.
Gospel music.
Heritage music that captured the sound of a region of the world that most Americans never hear.
Comedy records by legends that were never released elsewhere.
Blues, Jazz, Rock, early Rap albums that help to lay the foundation for what we have now.
Gone.
Gone because rights became an issue, people didn’t feel the pull or need to put this music on other formats, and frankly, because some of it no longer has source material and only that record you can try to reproduce.
We’re looking at that with movies.
In a time when studios can shelve movies for tax breaks.
Can bury movies that are not performing well on the streaming services.
Rights issues.
Legal issues.
Royalties that need to be paid.
Or sometimes the movie is just too old to give a damn about.
The dream of streaming was that with all of these streamers we’d start to see more and more content being released. Lost television programs. Forgotten movies. Rare concerts.
We thought, heck, EVERYTHING will be available to us and we can just watch it.
ALMOST like a digital video store.
It hasn’t worked out that way though.
Sure, it’s simplistic to think that it could happen that way but…it sorta COULD with all the streamers out there. They are making SO much money that it’s crazy but they all plead poverty and then raise their rates once more. They’d rather pour two hundred million into some whacko action movie people will watch once and care about for two weeks than to get the rights to twenty classics or cult classics to stream.
And here’s the thing – cult classics, though we may want to turn our nose up at them, have followings for a reason.
People go back to them over and over again.
Take a look at any of the recent action movies or deep-minded dramas made for award season and see how many you want to revisit.
But streamers are sharks, always moving, always hunting.
It’s about the buzz.
About the social media frenzy.
It’s a one-night stand with all the courting and passion and then sneaking out in the dark to move on to the next conquest.
This is why, as much as I’d love a publisher behind me, I am OK with doing it my way because I will always support these books, and not just for the few months it’s on the books.
Some of these streamers use their back catalog of films as a sort of hostage scenario where they COULD release these things, and MIGHT, but they probably won’t because someone counting beans doesn’t think it will make enough money for them to bother.
Womp.
There is absolutely something fetishistic in hanging on to physical THINGS. There is. Sure. it’s comforting, and it’s great to have a library of things, but we don’t NEED it all.
Being a human isn’t about need though.
We NEED to eat, drink, crap, pee, and sleep.
That’s about it.
We SHOULD do other stuff, but NEED and SHOULD are not the same.
We have evolved past need.
We are part of a collective but as such, we are also individuals with passions and interests and loves.
We should honor that.
It doesn’t mean to collect everything or to never move on but it means to honor what we love.
It means to keep it safe in some way.
It means sharing what we love and why we love it.
So many of us turn our noses up at collectors – uh, what a waste.
But, is it?
ANYTHING that doesn’t help you eat, sleep, remove waste from your body, or keep hydrated is extraneous.
Minimalism has its place if it brings you peace, but if it doesn’t…why are you doing it?
Digitizing everything is an AMAZING way to keep track of things and access it on various devices in various ways but the fact is that technology fails and as someone who has had it fail them, you can lose everything that way.
And it sucks.
No one expects all of us to be the ‘keepers of the flame’.
To collect every book, every album, every movie, and in every format.
Just in case.
No.
But we should all honor what we love.
If it’s records then get some records you love and listen them.
If it’s movies…get what you love in the format you love and watch them.
If it’s books, collect what you love and keep them.
The fact is that a day is coming when we don’t have access to the things we love, things that right now seem easy to find.
Everything will have its own paywall and we’ll be able to reach it…for a price.
Wanna hear that Beatles song?
Pay for it.
Not to own it…to listen to it.
Wanna read that book?
Rent it digitally.
You have a week then it deletes itself.
Tech is great but it also puts more control over art by people serving boards and investors. It all just becomes so much content to exploit or ignore. Once the creators are gone it’s just filed away and forgotten.
All it takes is a quick look on the movie boutique sites to see how many films we have never heard of or seen on American shores but are finally being given a chance to be re-discovered.
Part of what I loved about video stores was the discovery of something I’d never heard of before.
That’s lost.
If it doesn’t have ‘buzz’ or is too old it’s lost.
Imagine all of the classics we love today, movies like IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE, that were not beloved initially but became that way over time.
Streamers don’t have patience for that.
It’s now or never.
Next.
And with so much of our culture tied to the arts and to movies, and music, and books, now is the time to preserve and collect, and honor it all because a day will come when everything is paywalled and the rest that isn’t is discarded as so much dusty old junk to be thrown away and forgotten.
…c…
I write books. Go buy one.
The Spooky World of Chris Ringler 