Why Are We Still Streaming?

Streaming was supposed to make entertainment easier—but somehow it feels more complicated than ever. In this episode, we dive into the growing frustrations of modern streaming platforms, from endless subscription fees and disappearing content to confusing interfaces, password crackdowns, and the overwhelming challenge of deciding what to watch. We explore how the promise of convenience has evolved into a fragmented ecosystem that leaves viewers juggling apps, budgets, and recommendations.

Whether you're tired of chasing your favorite shows across multiple services or just miss the days when finding something to watch didn't feel like a part-time job, this conversation unpacks the highs, lows, and future of streaming. Tune in as we discuss what's working, what's broken, and whether the streaming industry has lost sight of the audience it was built to serve.

Download this and future episodes of our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocketcasts, and anywhere else to find your favorite shows. You can search Why Are We Like This? and please be sure to subscribe, and/or write a review if possible to help build our show.  Have an idea for a future episode, or want to join us for a conversation? Send us a message with the link above!

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Hi. Hello. Hi.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

Hi, welcome back.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

Welcome back to Why Are We Like This?

SPEAKER_00 0:25

I don't know. But we're figuring it out.

SPEAKER_01 0:28

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 0:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:30

One dysfunctional situation at a time.

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Well, this situation has definitely grown to be extremely dysfunctional, and I find myself more and more frustrated by it every day. And that is digital streaming.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:47

I I am really frustrated by the whole process of it now. And I don't know. I don't know why that is.

SPEAKER_01 0:57

Um because it's super confusing and the it keeps changing all the time.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

Yeah. Yeah, I do. I feel like when when things first started going to streaming, right? Yeah. Uh it it I remember our friend had explained, oh, it's on its way and it'll be like watching TV, but it'll be a la carte. So you pay for what you want to watch, and you don't have to pay hundreds of dollars to a cable company or like DirecTV to make uh TV happen in your house. You can just buy and purchase and watch as as you do, and that sounded really great. Yeah. That sold me.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

And and he was a really good resource at keeping us sort of abreast of the technology so that we could really kind of get a grip on it and handle it as it was coming at us. Yeah. But even then, like it just it it got out of control. And let's let's start at the beginning. Let's start with the arc of entertainment and how entertainment was delivered to us, its purpose, and why in the hell we've gotten ourselves into this mess.

SPEAKER_00 2:06

Yeah. I it started out great.

SPEAKER_01 2:09

Well, it started out as TV. You bought a TV, you plugged it in, you turned it on, you had 13 channels, and that was that. And then cable came out. And and this was, I think, like the the beginning or the genesis of where we are now with streaming platforms, is you had this secondary appliance that you plugged in to your TV that then gave you access to more than what the TV was capable of giving you on its own. And we had cable TV, and then we had the premium pay channels like HBO, Cinemax, Showtime. Right. Right. So if you wanted movies in your home outside of what TV was giving you, you then had that option for an additional price. And that was also, I feel, the beginning of what we now know as subscription-based service.

SPEAKER_00 3:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:01

And you had contracts back then too. Right. So when cable came out, you had contracts. Um, and then that morphed into satellite TV.

SPEAKER_00 3:10

Oh, yeah. I remember my neighbor's first satellite dish.

SPEAKER_01 3:13

And it was huge. And it was always malfunctioning. Yep. And you couldn't watch multiple channels in the same household. Whatever channel one TV was on, the rest of the TVs had to be on that channel as well. So weird. And then came personal like satellite service, like direct TV and Dish Network. Right. Which for me at the time, going back to like the 2000s, that that was sort of like the the apex or the pinnacle of entertainment because it offered you regular TV, it offered you cable TV, it offered you the premium pay channels, but then you also had um, oh, I forget what it was even what it was called now, but you could pay per movie. You could pay per view. Pay-per-view. Oh, thank you. Yes. So then you had you had pay-per-view. Right. And the the amazing thing for me about the satellite TV, like Direct TV and Dish Network, Direct TV being my personal favorite, is that you could get your shows here on the West Coast three hours earlier because it it sent the shows out all at the same time and it was on Eastern Standard Time. So if a show was at nine o'clock Eastern Standard Time, we got it at six o'clock, which meant I could watch the nine, ten, eleven o'clock shows much earlier and still go to bed, not have to go to bed and wait for the next day to catch my show. Yeah. Which is where we're at now because the streaming platforms make you wait an extra day, but they give you bonus material for doing that. You know what I liked about Direct TV?

SPEAKER_00 4:57

What's that? What you said, but also I enjoyed being able to fast forward through commercials.

SPEAKER_01 5:01

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:02

And that was uh immediately after TiVo.

SPEAKER_01 5:05

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 5:06

And uh it was um it was a time where you could fast forward through the commercials because you've paid for that service. Right. There wasn't additional add-ons, there wasn't Direct TV Plus or anything like that. It was just like, oh, aside from regular TV, if you purchase our service, you won't have commercials if you don't want them. Right. Yep. And that was wonderful.

SPEAKER_01 5:31

It was wonderful.

SPEAKER_00 5:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:33

But then that also started the challenge of well, how do these stations and programmers make their money? Right. Advertising dollars. Now what's happening is people are skipping through the advertisements. So we've got to find a way to keep them from being able to skip through the advertisements. And if they still want to skip through the advertisements, then we'll offer that as a premium option and they're gonna pay for that to make up for those lost advertising dollars.

SPEAKER_00 5:59

Yeah. Or we'll slap it in a weird graphic along the bottom of the screen and take up three quarters of it.

SPEAKER_01 6:04

Yeah. Or we're still gonna give you advertisements, even if you're paying for no advertisements, because technically it's for our own branded content, so it's not an advertisement.

SPEAKER_00 6:14

I hate it. Yes, I hate it so much.

SPEAKER_01 6:16

So DirecTV for me again was sort of like the sweet spot between cable and where we are now with streaming platforms. But then what happened is there'd be seasons of shows or events that you wanted to watch, and then you'd get a message from DirecTV saying, sorry, but this channel is currently unavailable because we are under contract negotiations with this provider. And I don't really understand the process behind that. But for me as the layman, it felt like, well, we're we're proposing this problem to you as the subscriber. Exactly. And the way to get around it is for us to say, hey, our hands are tied, but we have to raise the price in order for you to get what you had originally signed up for, which in legal terms makes something materially adverse.

SPEAKER_02 7:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:08

So you sign up for a contract, you are in these heavy duty ironclad contracts with these companies, and then they say, in order to get the same service that you signed up for, you now have to pay more for that. That's materially adverse.

SPEAKER_00 7:22

Well, I I imagine, because I never really fully read through all of that. It's like the Apple um consent that pops up, and you're like, Yeah, yeah, I got it. I'm downloading it. Sure, fine. Yeah. I'm sure there's something in there that protects them that's like, oh, by the way, we can raise the price whenever we want. Right.

SPEAKER_01 7:38

Well, I mean I think that's the loophole. Yeah. But again, if people, you know, I I've had a couple situations with like cell phone providers where uh I've run into materially adverse issues and I've done my research and and been able to navigate that. But I think most people don't have the time or the resources in order to do that. And these companies create these loopholes that I think the savvy enough person can navigate the loophole, but most people think, well, this these are my two options, and and they're stuck. And so they continue to get away with whatever it is that they can get away with until they can't get away with it anymore. And now everything is still subscription based. But unless you're like financing a phone over three years with Verizon or ATT, the contracts are pretty much null and void. No one really has contracts anymore. It's it's always, you know, quit or cancel at any time, yeah, which is great. Um, but in my experience over the last couple of years, am I, you know, do I like the idea of saving a couple bucks on something by subscribing to it rather than just getting it whenever I need it? Yes. But for me, at the end of the day, subscription-based purchases are just too much of a hassle. Something happens where they're out of stock, or the delivery service that's in charge of getting it to me on time isn't doing its job. And I'm still getting charged each month for this same level of service that I'm now no longer receiving. So I've started to throttle back on subscription-based services, even with like Amazon subscribe and save. Like, you know, Amazon, for as evil as people make it out to be, is actually one of the most consistent services for me. There are a couple products that we use in our house that I have set up as subscribe and save. It just goes on the credit card. So I don't have to worry about when the charge goes through. I just pay the bill at the end of the month. And then every two, three, or four months, depending on the product, I know that it's going to show up and I get a notification before it's being sent out that it's about to be sent out. So if I need to delay it or whatever, I have that option. And Amazon is very user-friendly in that capacity. But now everybody offers subscription-based services, even in espresso. It's like, hey, do you want to sign up and you can get 10% off your order and just have it shipped? It's like, well, yeah, I would like 10% off. But here's the deal: some months I drink more coffee than other months. And I don't like being told by the company when I need to have something in my house or in my possession for my use. I buy it, I use it. When I need to replace it, I replace it. So going back to where we are now with streaming services being the next evolution, it's all subscription based. And you just go from platform to platform to platform.

SPEAKER_00 10:38

Yeah. And and I found at first it it to be kind of exciting, where you're like, oh, okay, so uh Hulu has their own platform. So that means I get some of Fox stuff. This was pre-Disney. Uh, and then Disney has one. Wow, I can get all the classic Disney stuff that I've I used to have DVDs and VHS of, and now I can watch them all whenever I want. Right. Um, Paramount, Peacock. Each one as they came out, I was excited to download it and get into their like vault of proprietary entertainment that I've known and loved over the years. And just waiting for more. Like, I can't wait till HBOs is available or MGM, or I'm thinking of all these things that either whether they were movies that I already owned or had at one point, um I we had since gotten rid of our DVDs because they were just taking up so much space. Right. And we found that we were ha we had access to streaming, so that made sense. We could still watch what we wanted to, or we kept the ones that we really loved. Correct. Um and the other thing is as as you're as we were watching it, realizing, oh, I can I can watch this when I want, I can watch that when I want, and feeling comfortable knowing where those things are. I know that I can find Harry Potter on HBO because Harry Potter is a Warner property, and so it's gonna be there. Um and again, everything seems hunky-dory and relatively uh equitable in cost when you're paying like five to ten dollars max for each of these individual subscriptions, it didn't still add up to what we were paying for direct TV and the add-ons, which was like between two hundreds of dollars. Uh so it felt appropriate. Yeah. And now Well, and the control too.

SPEAKER_01 12:25

Yeah, yeah. If I can interrupt for a second, the control of being able to watch what you want to watch, when you want to watch it, without having to uh remind yourself to set your DVR to record something. Right. And if you just discovered a show, realizing that you have a whole season or two seasons or three seasons that you could binge watch. And and I think that there's this tiny little segment in between direct TV and streaming that was responsible for creating the binge watching movement, and that was Netflix, yeah, when it was the discs. You could get three or four discs of a show at one time, and each disc had like four episodes on it. And I remember the first two shows that I binged watched that way was the British show House Baller's Wives, which I absolutely loved, and Las Vegas, because I was introduced to the show Las Vegas with Josh Dumal and James Kahn well into its like fourth season. So I was able to play catch up because I was getting like three or four DVDs delivered at a time. Yeah. And it's like one o'clock in the morning, and I'm like, oh, I've got one more episode on this disc. Let me just finish this. I can get by with six hours of sleep before I have to get up for work.

SPEAKER_02 13:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:42

And that that started, I think, the whole binge watching craze, which then kind of morphed into streaming platforms. And how they were able to launch themselves was like, hey, you don't have to wait for these discs to arrive in the mail. You get instant access to this entire series all at once.

SPEAKER_00 14:02

That also changed DirecTV's programming scheduling because they realized, oh, more and more people are just sitting on Netflix with these DVDs or the streaming version of Netflix and uh watching uh uh hours of a time of one single show. So then TV's like, okay, well, we're gonna put Modern Family on for a six-hour block. How do you think about that? Right. Um, and now that's every single channel. Yeah, like that's all they do, it's just blocks of the same show. Yep. Uh, real quick, I don't want to correct you, but in case anyone's wondering, uh Footballers Wives was the name of the show, right? Yeah, what you said house ballers, which I would also watch, but I just want to make sure, in case anyone was curious about the show that you loved so much, I wanted to simplify it. That's like the porn version, right?

SPEAKER_01 14:50

Like Throbin Hood instead of Robin Hood. I would also watch that. Yes, Footballers Wives. Great show. On the on the BBC, it was a really the first two seasons were absolutely amazing.

SPEAKER_00 15:03

My first binge was Vicar of Dibley.

SPEAKER_01 15:05

Oh, that's such a great show.

SPEAKER_00 15:06

Which I had always heard about because I've I've always been a fan of British comedy. I just like the sensibility. As a kid, I was connected to it somehow. And that was one that I, while hearing about it, could never find it. Yeah. And didn't know where to look. And then that was on Netflix and and had all the discs and just watched the whole thing and just instantly fell in love and loved that one.

SPEAKER_01 15:27

Which in the beginning of these streaming platforms was another great positive, was that now we had access to shows that local programmers really had no interest in providing to their audience. And so it expanded our ability to enjoy entertainment, which was a great thing. And then, like any drug dealer or peddler, once we got hooked, the game changed.

SPEAKER_00 15:54

It definitely changed.

SPEAKER_01 15:55

And you know, here we are now in 2026, and you know, as a hairstylist, I have different types of conversations with different types of clients. But the one conversation that I find myself having with almost every single client is what are you watching? Yeah. Yes. And so they will recommend shows to me, or I will recommend shows to them. And then the conversation's like, oh, I don't have Apple, I have Netflix. Or I don't have Netflix, I have Hulu, or I've got HBO Max, but I don't have Hulu. Peacock, is that the same as Paramount? Right. Yeah. And and they're not only is it confusing to try to keep track of what shows you're watching on which platforms, but now the platforms are kind of they're playing with each other, and shows will jump from one platform to another. So you subscribe, and this is where I think like not having contracts is also really great, too. Yeah. Because you can sign up, you know, this show is on Paramount. Oops, this show just moved over to Hulu. Okay, so I'm canceling Paramount and then I'm moving over to Hulu. Right. Right. Yeah. So I think that that's a positive. Yeah. But what the negative of that is, is that because these shows I think are not exclusive to one provider or platform, no one wants to pay the music licensing fees. So for older shows, like for myself, Queer as Folk, or especially 90210, where the music was such a huge part of the character of the show. Right. And now you get these weird music versions of the songs. Yeah. And the one that that you know always pisses me off is the Halloween episode of the second season of 90210, where Kelly makes her entrance at the party to Karen White's romantic song, and it's some weird goobly goblin-you know, spooky hole, spooky, spooky, spooky. Yeah, sex stuff. It's like, are you kidding me? Like, it's so it's so absolutely ridiculous. And the amount of money that these providers are making on these streaming services to not be able to among themselves find out, well, maybe I don't purchase the leasing rights, maybe I rent the rights to this music for the time that it's on. Because you're supposed to be providing this for your audience, yet you're only giving the audience a specific portion of what they think they're getting. And for new audience members who never watched 90210 back in the 90s, it's a completely different show. And also for exposure for the musical artists as well. Yeah. I mean, you look at um, was it Murder on the Dance Floor? And it was in Saltburn, right? Yeah. 20 years after the release. I mean, just like huge. Or what was the other one? Running up the hill by Kate Bush, right? So, you know, uh, Karen White, if you didn't come of age in the 90s, you don't know who Karen White is, but she was a phenomenal musical artist, and her song, Romantic, was a banger of a song. Yeah, there is a whole new demographic out there that's totally discovering 90s music right now. That having these songs on these programs could help garner exposure and generate more dollars in an authentic and an organic way where everybody wins. If they were smart about it, absolutely. But they're not smart about it because they are corrupted by greed and the cash grab. Exactly. That's all it is. It's no longer about providing quality entertainment to your audience. And, you know, like we were talking about in our catch-up episode for this season, me feeling like I was doing a disservice to our audience because I was not putting being present for the content that we were putting out there first, right? Yeah. So be the example that you want to see in others. And you get a bunch of people that don't care about these shows, they don't care about the experience that these shows provide. They just got into what they do because they needed to generate an income for themselves. Yeah. And now they've found a lucrative cash grab, and that's the only thing that they're concerned about.

SPEAKER_00 20:10

Yeah. And I'm sure most of them have probably even never seen that show, whether whether it be 90210 or Queer as Folk. Right. So their boss says, Oh, we have this untapped show that we just got the light the rights to. Let's put it on the streaming platform. Yep. Well, there's a lot of music on it. Uh just get rid of it. Fill it right, it's fine. Right. They'll know it's not that they want to. Um and I and Queer as Folk is a great example that you brought up. That music was so important to me in my life at that time that I I had just come out and to have a show not only graphic, but also true to character relationships, to the dynamics outside of those characters. Yeah. And the music was so important to me that I, in addition to buying the DVD sets every time they would come out after the seasons, yeah, would go to Best Buy and buy the album every season because the music was loved virgin. Uh but it was so important to me. And I listened to that music all the time. And the the the key moment for me is that very first episode of Queer Spoke when um What Have You Done Today to Feel Proud? Oh yeah. Yep. And that that became an anthem for so many people. Like I'm tearing up thinking about it because it was such a strong moment for those characters who we had just met, yeah, and instantly became a strong moment for us. Yeah. And you watch it now on Netflix and it's just like, Are you smart and proud? So bizarre. You do proud things. Yeah, it's so bad.

SPEAKER_01 21:44

Yeah, it's like the short bus version of the song.

SPEAKER_00 21:46

It absolutely is. But on the flip side, um, there are companies that are doing the right thing. Yeah. Surprisingly, Disney did it recently when they re-released all of the Muppet show that Muppet fans like myself have been waiting decades for. They released them once on DVD and they weren't complete. They had to pull stuff because of music licensing or artists or whatever. And now they're all available. Yeah. And it it's it was such a nice, like fresh air moment to be like, wow. Someone's actually doing it right. And it's Disney.

SPEAKER_01 22:18

Right. That's right. Well, if there's one company that could afford to do it, it would be Disney. That's true. That's true. Yeah. Um, my song for Queer as Folk was Let's Get Silken Wet. Right? Like, okay, do the bump, get on the dance floor, let's go.

SPEAKER_00 22:34

There's so many good songs. Yeah. Sexy songs, love songs, angry songs.

SPEAKER_01 22:40

Like so. And and what's interesting too is that some shows had paid for the um for the licensing for the music for DVDs, but not for streaming. And unfortunately, 90210 was so early on in the game, DVDs really weren't a thing back then that even if you get the DVD episodes, it doesn't have the music. So once Soapnet went off the air and the reruns of 90210 were off the air, there's there's no way that you can watch a 90210 episode with original soundtrack anymore. The only exception to that is uh I think it was the end uh towards the end of of season two of 90210. It was things to do on a rainy day in February, and it was the Color Me Bad episode.

SPEAKER_00 23:37

Oh, right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:38

And because the episode featured Color Me Bad, I think the music that they played became a part of the rights of that episode. But I'm I'm sure that episode probably is a little bit more expensive because that's a show that has jumped around to a couple different platforms. And on one platform, that episode was not available, it was out of the queue. On the other platform, it was available to watch and part of the queue.

SPEAKER_00 24:05

And you know how some shows are also part of their live TV that they do, where they'll just it's the 90210 channel, it's all the time. I'm fairly certain that that episode probably isn't in that rotation. Yeah. Because they don't want to have to pay for the rights each time it airs.

SPEAKER_01 24:21

Yeah. The the other episode that I have not been able to find that's completely out of rotation is the uh the first episode of the second season. Not the summer episodes, but the back to school episode, which was so much fun because it was uh it was heavily the beginning was Robert Palmer's um oh, what was it? There was a it is there was a there was a song where they were all getting ready for school and trying on their clothes. And and then they did like a spoof where the girls sang for the talent show instead of addicted to love, it was like addicted to shopping or addicted to clothes or something like that. But then the whole Emily Valentine romantic thing came into play, and then they ended up doing a completely different song. So you had multiple songs in this one episode that um would just be so expensive that they just decide, well, we're not gonna let people see this episode. But this episode is crucially important to this season because it introduces the Emily Valentine character to everybody and and why her character was so disruptive to the group as a whole. But that's not important. No, that's that's not important.

SPEAKER_00 25:39

So bizarre.

SPEAKER_01 25:40

And and you know, we we say that facetiously, but it also is important because in a way we're kind of talking about time capsule issues.

SPEAKER_02 25:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:48

Right? They don't make TV like they used to make it. Right. After the 2008 strike, uh, the writer strike, TV really has never been the same. I mean, we went from 26 to 34 episodes a season to now eight to 12 episodes a season.

SPEAKER_00 26:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:04

And the way that you have to deliver the content, the storylines are affected, uh, everything gets affected without this episode turning into that conversation. Um, so to be able to go back and nostalgically enjoy these time capsules of shows, I think is something that's really important that a lot of audience members really want, and that new audience members could then understand where we're coming from. Like as a Gen Xer in the 80s and 90s, I grew up watching contemporary stuff, but I was also acutely aware of stuff that my parents grew up with because I did have access to that. Yeah, K Earth 101 played all the oldies. So there were songs from the 50s and 60s that I heard that I just liked, even though it wasn't contemporary music.

SPEAKER_02 26:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:57

Now you try to have a conversation about an actor from the 80s or 90s with a you know millennial or a Gen Zier or Gen Alpha, and they have no idea who you're talking about because their access to that exposure has been crucially limited by these pencil pushers making these insane decisions when it comes to providing us our entertainment.

SPEAKER_00 27:18

That's an interesting point. I never thought of that because I have the had those conversations before, and then I just assume I'm the old gay, so I'm just talking nonsense. But no, you're absolutely right. We did have access to Nick at Night was on my TV all the time. Yeah. My dad loved those shows, and then I in turn grew to love those shows, and then what those shows became in later sit clubs, and that's um that stylization of TV and yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 27:44

And also because of the access to those shows and the audience awareness, for example, Brady Bunch. Brady Bunch was only on for a couple seasons. It aired, was off the air before I was born, but with syndication and becoming popular after the fact, it generated enough momentum that in the mid-90s they made two Brady Bunch movies that those of us that were coming of age in the 90s who had the reference point for the original Brady Bunch could relate to masterpieces. Hello. Yeah, and now there's you you can't have that. The only thing that you have now are these like Michael Bay Summer Blockbuster action remakes. Like, how many Supermans do we need? How many Spider-Mans do we need? How many times do we need to remake something that doesn't need to be remade? Not because remakes are always a waste of time, but just because it's a waste of the intellectual property and creativity of people who are responsible for creating that entertainment and keeping us in a forward momentum. Art, creativity, that is that that that is the kill switch to fascism in our country. Fascism hates art, it hates creativity, it hates critical thought, it hates free thinking. Yes, and that's what art and entertainment does for us. So, in a way, these multi-conglomerant companies and corporations who are in control of the arts and entertainment are slowly degrading the value of arts and entertainment. And you look at Bravo, Bravo used to be an arts and entertainment show, right? Like inside the actor studio, old movies, Italian movies, right? Now it is the hub for reality TV and not just reality TV, but reality TV that depicts a way of life that represents the most damaged, broken, fractured parts of our society.

SPEAKER_00 29:44

And and sets the standard for what people think TV is supposed to be now.

SPEAKER_01 29:48

And what life is supposed to be like. It sets this false narrative and standard for what an aspirational life is supposed to look like.

SPEAKER_00 29:56

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 29:58

And all because why? Someone didn't want to spend a couple extra dollars to pay for the music rights to fully present and preserve these time capsule shows from our past.

SPEAKER_00 30:11

That's a bummer. It it is it is a big bummer, and and that kind of that brings me to maybe a little glimmer of hope, or at least uh a shift in in thinking and perspective. And uh I think at this point, like you were having talking about the conversation you have with your clients. We have it with our parents, yeah. We have it with people at work all the time. Like, what are you watching? What are you watching? It's this uh overbearing and exhausting uh uh feeling uh like I'm debilitated by choice, and so I don't choose anything, and I hate that.

SPEAKER_01 30:48

Um I mean you spend almost as much time as it takes to watch a movie trying to pick a movie.

SPEAKER_00 30:52

Yeah, and you and I will do that all the time. We're like we'll sit down and like, well, what do you want to watch? Yep. Kind of nothing. Yeah. Because it's either all bad, yeah, anything new doesn't interest me relatively, right? It's a generalization, um, or it's something that I have watched so much that I'm I'm concerned that it's no longer gonna be fun for me.

SPEAKER_01 31:14

So then what do we do? We find a show that we've watched a hundred times before, like charmed, and we just put it on, it's on in the background, and then what do we do? We're on our phones, we pick up our phones and we start scrolling.

SPEAKER_00 31:25

It's so sad. Which is also entertaining, but I wish that we could go back a little bit and and what we are seeing a little bit of is that going back where people are are where where we unplugged from cable and which is streaming, people are unplugging from streaming and going to VHS or DVD, and they're actually buying physical media again.

SPEAKER_01 31:47

Well, and I also want to make uh you know, there there is a difference in entertainment between watching a TV show that has uh a truly intentional creative output versus scrolling, which is basically scrolling on Instagram is taking those lost advertising dollars that people aren't watching on TV for commercials and putting it on the phone in the form of entertainment. You are so right because what social media does is it it breeds comparison. If you don't have this, if you're not like that, you're not doing this, if you're not doing this, if you're not vacationing here, if you're not driving this car, if you're not wearing this label, you are less than. So what are you gonna do? Spend money that you don't have on things that you don't need, yeah, that do absolutely nothing to make you a better person.

SPEAKER_00 32:35

Click this button, you can buy it now.

SPEAKER_01 32:37

Exactly. Exactly. So for me, social media, like I very quickly realized, no, I'm being sold things under the guise of entertainment. And the insidious part of it is that these are not paid actors who are delivering these advertisements to me. These are affiliates that manufacturers and companies have like sleeper cells that are put into my feed to try to make me feel like I need to be buying this.

SPEAKER_00 33:05

Who in turn are sold with the prospect of being famous, right? Like you'll get everything that you want if you just do what you're told.

SPEAKER_01 33:12

And some of them do get famous, but then their sense of reality becomes so corrupted, and they start wielding this quote unquote influencer power. Like, oh, don't you know who I am? I have lots of followers. You should give me free food and I'll promote your business. But if you don't give me free food, then I'm gonna tell everybody how horrible your business is. Well, you know what that is? That's a fucking shakedown.

SPEAKER_00 33:37

Yeah, it's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 33:38

And then you have certain people that are out there doing really good, calling out these corrupted evil influencers, and then in turn being called bullies for exposing others' bullying behavior.

unknown 33:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:52

So the whole thing, like the inmates are running the asylum at this point, and I do hope that we see a curve and we kind of come back to a little bit more of a compartmentalization of what is entertainment and what is advertising. Yeah. Because right now we are consumed with consuming.

SPEAKER_00 34:13

Ugh, gross. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. I part of me, like when I when I see these news stories or when or where I like get little these glimmers of hope, and then I'm thinking should we open a video store here in our little town? Like, how cute would that be to like just rent a smaller space up next to the salon? Yeah. And it's the great big gay video store, or whatever we call it. And then that's where people go and they can come and and see curated sections that we've created of classic film or horror films that we love that we want to inspire other people to enjoy and get excited about.

SPEAKER_01 34:47

And that was a whole part of the fun was going to the store and you know, it's one thing to spend 30, 40 minutes in a store perusing titles versus spending 30, 40 minutes in bed or on your couch clicking a button to scroll through titles, right? Now, the one thing with movie stores like Blockbuster is that they then they eventually they started releasing TV shows. So like you could go to Blockbuster and you could rent all the Sex in the City DVDs, right? But not everybody's at the same point and they're binge watching. So sometimes the first and the third DVD would be available, but the second and the fourth DVD wouldn't be available, right?

SPEAKER_00 35:25

Which would be frustrating.

SPEAKER_01 35:26

So I told you about this really great idea I had a few months ago where people are feeling nostalgic. Their 90s are really back in a big way right now, and people want that Blockbuster Friday night experience that they remember from their childhood. And so my idea was for Blockbuster to come back, and I'm gonna put this out there into the ether so that if it ever happens, I'm gonna say, hey, you heard it here first. I put the idea out there whether I executed it or not. Copyright, why are we like this 2020? Trademark, why are we like this? Jared Fisher. So if Blockbuster were to revamp itself, right? And what what you did is instead of renting a DVD or a VHS type, you rented a little USB stick drive, right? So you go to the store, you look at all of the cases of the movies and the TV shows, just like you did in the 90s. And then when you go and you check out, you pay $325 adjusted for inflation, $12, whatever it is, right, to rent that movie or TV series. And they give you a USB stick, which you don't have to return because I'm sure they're cheap. Like one of the things about Blockbuster was having to return the video after you watched it. Yeah. Or you get an access code.

SPEAKER_02 36:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:45

So you go home, you sign on to your Amazon Fire, your Google, your Plex, Roku, whatever it is that you have, you go to the Blockbuster app and you enter in the code that you got, and it gives you 48-hour access to that movie. Yeah. So you get the experience of going to the Blockbuster, you get the nostalgia of it, you get to peruse the titles visually and tangibly in person, and then you have the checkout experience, and then you go home excited with your popcorn and your your microwave popcorn and your licorice that you picked up at the counter, right? And you're gonna go home and you're gonna watch this movie with your friends or your family. You go home, you pop the popcorn, you plug in the code, you watch the movie, and it's a fantastic experience. And then you don't have to rewind anything and you don't have to return anything.

SPEAKER_00 37:33

It's really cool. I do remember you saying that. What's funny is it's a great business model that has has a proven case study too. And I didn't realize this when you said it. So uh tell me how brilliant I am. You are seriously, you're but and it's not the exact, it's not the exact, but knowing that it works in this capacity, it could easily work in what you just described. Okay. So uh video game companies are doing that. It's called a game key card. Okay. So part of the industry woes or frustration is that it's very expensive to create the mini cartridges for video games now because the memory is so expensive. And so they don't want to create digital or sorry, physical video games to sell. They want to sell you the digital version so that you can just pay it, download it, and it's yours as you've licensed it or whatever. Um, but people really like to collect physical things, especially video games. People like to have their library, their collection set up. So they've created this game key card where you go to the store, you buy the video game, you buy Mario Kart, but you buy a game key card version of it. So that cartridge, which doesn't have the game in it, but it does have that access to it. So you plug it into your system. The Nintendo Network reads it as, oh, this person has purchased this game. So I'm going to allow them to download it, and it's theirs as long as they have that cartridge, that access, that USB card as you explained it. Yeah. Um, and then they in turn can keep it, they can sell it, they can rent it, take it to GameStop, whatever, but it still has that access without having to take the memory needed to do it.

SPEAKER_01 39:11

Right.

SPEAKER_00 39:11

Um, so they could you could easily do that with film and with TV and movies in in that video store format. In fact, I think that would be really cool. Well, as you're perusing, you wouldn't have to worry about it being in stock because it's always there. You just get access to it.

SPEAKER_01 39:24

And the library capacity for old and new content would be limitless. Absolutely. I mean, you'd have to have the data centers, but if we're building the data centers for AI bullshit anyway, why not have it for something that people actually want? And again, you know, I referenced this sort of time capsule mentality. You know, it if I think that it's really important to remember the past, remember how the past was represented so that we can learn from it. Because if we don't, then we're doomed to repeat it. And the arts and entertainment portion of our society and our culture and our community is a big part of that. And as we lose that, as schools are defunding art programs, and it becomes more and more about commercialization and production and monetary value and less about the art, which is people's expressions and perceptions of their reality. This podcast is a form of art because it is an expression of our perception of the reality that's happening around us. And the more we have the ability to communicate that with each other, the more we can tap into ourselves as a collective unit rather than all these separate little memes running around.

SPEAKER_00 40:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:43

I totally agree. So I'm I'm kind of tired of perusing the catalog online of different platforms, wondering, okay, which season of RuPaul's Drag Race is on which platform that we have to then sign up for this month and then remember to, you know, not sign up for. And then you think, well, maybe it would be easier just to go back to DirecTV. And it may or may not. I still see people with the little satellite dishes on their roofs in our neighborhood. Yeah. But it's no less expensive now in terms of competition for streaming platforms.

SPEAKER_00 41:17

No, it's not. The only thing I think of, and I and I don't know if it's true or not, but if we were to get Direc TV, we would still have to pay somehow to watch the shows that are not on Direct TV. Correct. Correct. So yeah, it's it's kind of a crapshoot either way. And like with Drag Race, sometimes I wonder, do I even want to go through the trouble to watch this season after last season?

SPEAKER_01 41:39

And the way that it jumps around, I mean, that you know, the logo VH1, Paramount, MTV, like it it and and like All Stars is on a different platform than the regular one. And you know, presents. Yeah, exactly. So it's, you know, and but I guess they can get away with it because we we follow the curve. How else are we going to consume? How else are we going to consume? Gross. It is kind of gross. But I also think that's what's important about our podcast and the clarity that I want to bring to maintaining the tone of our podcast is, you know, the mindfulness, the awareness, the okay, this is what we have to work with. How do we navigate this so that we're not victims to the machine, but using the machine to our advantage without it taking over? I'm curious to know what the listeners do. I am curious to know what you guys do as well. How do you get your form of entertainment? I mean, even with something like a podcast now, like ours is still a traditional podcast. When we have guests on, we will do video with the podcast to highlight the guests. But a lot of people now do podcasts, they they video the podcast. Everything is visual now because if people don't know what you look like, how are you going to get recognized at Starbucks?

SPEAKER_00 43:00

And are they doing it because they're that's an added value, or are they doing it just because everyone else is doing it? I think they're they're doing it because everybody else is doing it. I'm happy to do it. Like when we have a guest, I'm happy to give that that guest is giving us their time to hopefully probably promote whatever they're doing, yeah, or to talk about what interests them and gets them excited. And for me, it's kind of a like a thank you or a cost. Like because you're coming to the show, you're taking the time, we're also gonna put this on video so that uh you synergy, right? You get what you need out of it. Yep. Um but yeah, part of me is like, or are we just doing it because that's what's expected? I I don't feel that way, but I feel like there are people that do that, that it's like, gosh, we're all just feeding into the machine.

SPEAKER_01 43:43

Well, in in many ways, we are not faced with what is the best option, but what is the lesser of two evils. Yeah. Whether it comes to direct TV or subscribing to multiple streaming platforms, this candidate versus that candidate, this school versus that school, this experience versus that experience. It's no longer about the integrity of what goes into creating something for the human experience and having the best option available for you to choose from. Is about choosing the lesser of two evils or the least of all evils. And I think that's something that that we have the power to change, but we have to be willing to make some sacrifice and some compromise in our sense of entitlement for enjoyment in order to accomplish that.

SPEAKER_00 44:32

I agree. I I would like for us as a society to be able to make a choice for joy. Yeah. Rather than make a choice through having no choice.

SPEAKER_01 44:43

Right. Or convenience. Right. Yeah. We need to we need to wake up from the matrix.

SPEAKER_00 44:48

The matrix actually looks kind of nice. Uh relatively. Relatively. I'll take a nap in that pod for a while. That's fine. You've got to put a tube down my throat.

SPEAKER_01 44:58

Uh, you know what? I'm good. Radical acceptance of reality. You know, this is the reality that we live in. And I feel fortunate enough to be mindful enough to have the perception that I have. And I feel fortunate enough to have the platform to share the perception that I have. Because everything is about the human experience, because the human experience breeds growth. And with growth comes mindfulness, it comes expansion. And that's how you grow your soul. It's how you grow your consciousness.

SPEAKER_00 45:25

I'm absolutely joking because I think that that actual that that mentality that I was jokingly having is part of the problem too. Right. Because we all just like, I'm so exhausted. I'm just fine, do whatever. Yeah. I'll play along. Fine.

SPEAKER_01 45:38

Yeah. But like the running theme is life is hard, working sucks, blah, blah, blah. It's like, well, you need to start making better choices for yourself.

SPEAKER_00 45:46

Yeah. We're all burnt out. We're all tired.

SPEAKER_01 45:48

Everybody has everybody has the opportunity to be happy. It just depends on are you going to be the kind of person where you look at everything happening to you or everything happening for you? Yeah. And I'm not saying that life is not more difficult for others than for some. Some people have more privilege. Some people have more advantages. Absolutely. But it's about accepting the fact that, okay, I'm not going to compare myself to somebody that has more advantages or more privilege than I do. So the expectation for me to accomplish what they're accomplishing is not going to be the same.

SPEAKER_02 46:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:22

It's not about being better than somebody else. It's about being the best person that you can be for yourself. And a lot of that morality and that storytelling happened in these shows of yesterday that we were talking about that have been corrupted by today's sense of corporate greed and you know what's important. Just give them just enough to feel like they're getting what they want, but not the whole enchilada.

SPEAKER_00 46:49

And the shows are all about that now too. Sure.

SPEAKER_01 46:52

Sure they are. Yeah. It's well, it I'm gonna, before we close out, I'm gonna reference Idiocracy. Yeah. Yeah. The movie with Luke Wilson in my original. It's not just a movie. It it was a cautionary tale that nobody took seriously, and now it's literally happening. Yeah. And I don't mean literally in the way that influencers use literally. Genuinely. Genuinely. Oh my god, literally. No, it is literally happening. Brain rot is real. It's happening. And we we do, you know, I I joke about waking up from the matrix, but we we really need to make a conscious effort to put more effort into things because what threatens those who don't put effort into things is people putting effort into something. And that's where the power lies, is is within the effort that we put forth in ourselves.

SPEAKER_00 47:46

Well, I think we need to start a video store with your key card idea.

SPEAKER_01 47:50

I found my passion, girl.

SPEAKER_00 47:51

I love that.

SPEAKER_01 47:52

I'm doing what I'm doing. I'm I'm in I would like somebody, I would like to see somebody execute that idea.

SPEAKER_00 47:59

I think it's really cool.

SPEAKER_01 47:59

And I'll just take I'll take a small nominal percentage fee of that that experience. Yeah, as you know, since it's my seed, somebody else can water it.

SPEAKER_00 48:11

I'm picturing it in my head. Like I'm seeing all the little like key cards, the USBs, all have the little labels and they're collectible, and they're like, oh, this is my collection of germs.

SPEAKER_01 48:20

Well, and there and there can be. I mean, you know, you you there were some times where you could purchase a video from a video store, Blockbuster, you didn't just rent it. So if you want to purchase it, you purchase a USB drive that has it on it, like an NFC, right? Or your keychain. You just whatever, yeah. Um, or you bring your own USB, you plug it in to a machine at the store and they download it onto the yeah, you get a discount, right? And then if you just want to rent it, then you get an access code that you plug in to their app on, you know, like I said, whatever streaming device uh that you use. That's cool. I would do that. Right? I mean, it makes sense. I think it's evolutionary, yeah. And I think it's cost effective. And I think it's a win, thank you. I think it's a win-win situation for both the people providing the entertainment and those of us seeking the entertainment. For sure. It's a little bit more genuine, it's a little bit more authentic, and it maintains the integrity of, once again, I use the term that that time capsule mentality of yesterday's entertainment that had a lot of valuable lessons to it because it was less, it may have been more censored, a little bit more puritanical, but it also wasn't afraid to address, especially in the 90s, a lot of the issues that humans dealt with. Like even going further back to like Twilight Zone, which was in the 60s, you watch almost any Twilight Zone episode today, and it is just as relevant as it was when it came out in the 60s.

SPEAKER_00 49:44

Yeah. It's it's that's a good example. It makes me think of that one Twilight Zone episode that was banned for decades.

SPEAKER_01 49:53

Oh, with the George Takai one.

SPEAKER_00 49:55

And then it's finally available, and and you watch it and you realize oh, it wasn't banned because it was something awful. It was banned because wow, it was truthful. So truthful that that it pissed people off.

SPEAKER_01 50:06

Yep. Yep. It's crazy. We can't be afraid to to look at ourselves. No, we can't be afraid of our own truths. Right. And entertainment is a mirror. And I think as our society got worse and worse, we wanted to look in that mirror less and less, and that's why entertainment has kind of taken the turn that it's taken. And it again, it would be nice to to see that curve come back around to something that's more genuine and more authentic and more reflective because through that process we can become better people.

SPEAKER_00 50:38

There's some glimmers. Yeah. There are moments like hacks, uh, there are moments uh of shows that give me that that sense of like everything is gonna be okay through the batch. Yes, Creek is a wonderful example. Um, and and unfortunately with shows like that, they they have to end. Yeah. Because they know if they keep going, they're gonna end up like all the other schlock out there. They have to end it in its time.

SPEAKER_01 51:05

And I think that it's smart and it's healthy because you know, you have a show that's on for four or five seasons, life changes, the world changes. Yeah, that's true. You know, it's it's not the same reflection, the same relevant reflection. And so you stop and you make room for something new. And it also gives actors and writers and producers the ability to sink their teeth into something fresh and new so that they don't get stale. And there's a difference between nostalgia and time capsule mentality and being stuck in the past, right?

SPEAKER_00 51:38

Yeah, very, very poignant.

SPEAKER_01 51:40

So it's it's you know, you know, arts and entertainment is a valid form of education. And my mentor once said you have to look at education like a glass of water. If a glass of water gets too full and you feel like you don't have room for any more, then you got to dump some out to make room for more. So, yes, all good shows eventually have to come to an end to make way for new shows, as long as the torch or the baton is properly passed.

SPEAKER_00 52:04

I love that. Let's end on that.

SPEAKER_01 52:06

Let's end on that. Thanks for tuning in to Why Are We Like This, and we will see you next Tuesday. Bye. Bye.