LOVING ART TO DISTRACTION
On Captivating Your Audience in a Post-Entertainment Culture
In his recent state-of-the-culture address, “The State of the Culture, 2024,” Ted Gioia issued a startling, challenging, dispiriting proclamation:
“We’re witnessing the birth of a post-entertainment culture. And it won’t help the arts. In fact, it won’t help society at all.
“The fastest growing sector of the culture economy is distraction. Or call it scrolling or swiping or wasting time or whatever you want. But it’s not art or entertainment, just ceaseless activity.
“The key is that each stimulus only lasts a few seconds, and must be repeated.
“It’s a huge business, and will soon be larger than arts and entertainment combined. Everything is getting turned into TikTok—an aptly named platform for a business based on stimuli that must be repeated after only a few ticks of the clock.
“TikTok made a fortune with fast-paced scrolling video. And now Facebook—once a place to connect with family and friends—is imitating it. So long, Granny, hello Reels. Twitter has done the same. And, of course, Instagram, YouTube, and everybody else trying to get rich on social media.
“This is more than just the hot trend of 2024. It can last forever—because it’s based on body chemistry, not fashion or aesthetics.
“Our brain rewards these brief bursts of distraction. The neurochemical dopamine is released, and this makes us feel good—so we want to repeat the stimulus.”
So, Gioia contends, our world of arts and entertainment is now in the stranglehold of Big Tech. And that’s a huge problem. Because—
“The tech platforms aren’t like the Medici in Florence, or those other rich patrons of the arts. They don’t want to find the next Michelangelo or Mozart. They want to create a world of junkies—because they will be the dealers.
“Addiction is the goal.
“They don’t say it openly, but they don’t need to. Just look at what they do.
“Everything is designed to lock users into an addictive cycle.
· The platforms are all shifting to scrolling and reeling interfaces where stimuli optimize the dopamine doom loop.
· Anything that might persuade you to leave the platform—a news story, or any outside link—is brutally punished by their algorithms. It might liberate you from your dependent junkie status, and that can’t be allowed.
· But wait, there’s more! Apple, Facebook, and others are now telling you to put on their virtual reality headsets—where you are swallowed up by the stimuli, like those tiny fish in my food chain charts. You’re invited to live as a passive recipient of make-believe experiences, like a pod slave in The Matrix.”
If all this is true—and Gioia gives us good reasons to believe that it is—you Starving Artists of the 21st century [HIT LINK BELOW] must face up to this fact:
Your audience is on their phones. Perhaps vaguely interested in [INSERT YOUR EPOCH-DEFINING MASTERPIECE HERE], but too distracted or addicted by [IMAGINE THEIR DOOM SCROLL HERE…AND HERE…AND HERE] to pay attention.
Like those trolleys with an IV attached that patients roll beside them as they walk the corridors of the hospital, so too our cell phones are always with us in a pocket or a purse, so that we can get that shot of dopamine whenever we want it.
This is just where we are these days. There seems to be [CHECK YOUR EMAIL HERE] nothing for it.
Every story is about a protagonist in quest of a goal.
You are the protagonist of your artistic journey.
Your goal—unless you want to travel THE STEPHEN FRY ROUTE[1]—is to [CHECK SCORE OF GAME HERE] captivate an audience.
How are you going to do this? [PAUSE HERE TO WATCH MONTY PYTHON YOUTUBE SHORT]
It appears there are two possible routes to take.