My limits as a blogger are never as apparent as when I try to write a post and fail. Here are three recent attempts at blog posts where I sort through the detritus and see what went wrong.
Regulating Youtube - This is the most ambitious thing I've attempted in a while, trying to lay out the basics of how broadcast television content regulation differs from current attempts to regulate internet content, and how Youtube has essentially become the new dominant form of mainstream media. I'd seen a couple of Youtubers I follow put out videos about the new content restrictions they were expecting to be implemented soon, and worrying over how that might affect their monetization. There were also several recent reports from various tech watchdogs that were pointing out how much time children were spending watching Youtube and Tiktok compared to linear television. On average, kids with access to Youtube are spending about an hour a day on the site.
I wrote about a thousand words before coming to the conclusion that this topic was way too broad. I was trying to stuff too many things into a single post - my changing viewing habits, my kids' viewing habits, the history of television regulation, the history of internet regulation, and the history of Youtube - Elsagate, monetization, recent policy changes, etc. The big point is that even though Youtube is so much more complicated to filter than traditional linear television, it's facing the same demands from viewers and advertisers that all major forms of media have faced over the years, and so it's inevitably moving toward tighter restrictions on its content. Because it can't possibly vet all the uploaded videos individually, it depends on far less reliable AI and community self-policing, resulting in a lot of headaches for content creators. A figure drawing channel I follow had to rework and reupload several older videos, because they featured completely non-sexualised nudes.
Film Critics - We lost Roger Ebert ten years ago this month, and the landscape for film critics has changed drastically in the interim. Many entertainment websites and publications are gone, or are in the hands of people who do not value strong critical voices. Many venerable critics have retired or have become freelancers. However, critics are as important as ever to the media discourse. Critics are vital for championing smaller films like "Aftersun" that would have otherwise gotten lost in the crowd. Critics have lost major platforms, but they're making inroads on social media, through podcasts, videos, substacks, newsletters, and other places on the internet. Film Twitter would definitely be missed if the Elon Musk venture ends up going down in flames.
However, I really don't feel like I've got enough perspective on this topic. Frankly, I don't keep up with the critical community as much as I keep up with a couple of adjacent film journalists these days. I don't regularly read film reviews much anymore, preferring podcasts and videos because they allow for longer discussions. I am absolutely part of the problem - and I'm still writing and blogging movie reviews! So every time that I try to write about film critics, I end up self-interrogating myself out of it. The anniversary of Ebert's passing was enough for me to make another attempt, but it went nowhere. I'll just point out that RogerEbert.com is alive and well, and you can find the reviews of Christy Lemire and Matt Zoller Seitz and other talented critics there.
Blogging Into the Void - Finally, I've been considering various ways to address an existential question about this blog. Why am I still writing this when it's clear that nobody is reading it, my writing isn't getting any better, and I'm doomed to mediocrity and irrelevance? Well, because I enjoy writing this blog as a hobby, my ambitions have always been limited, and I do have an audience - me. I go back and read the older entries on the blog all the time. And I've been doing this long enough now that I've got a pretty good chronicle of my experience with media progressing through the last twelve-odd years. Just browsing through the 2013 entries, I can see when "House of Cards" premiered and kicked off the streaming wars, that "Doctor Who" was in the Matt Smith era, Blockbuster was on its way out, and Spill.com had just closed up shop. And of course there was "Frozen."
Stephen King, when asked why he wrote horror, responded with a question - "Why do you assume I have a choice?" Why am I still writing this blog? Because I still want to.
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