The "Wall Street Journal" did a piece on the effect on Four Seasons Hotels. "Vanity Fair" wrote about Aimee Lou Wood's teeth.
And do you know how many people have e-mailed me about this HBO/MAX show?
ZERO!
But my inbox is blowing up about "Adolescence." And until the last twenty four hours, the mainstream media has been out of the loop, because it's been an underground story. Other than Trump, almost everything worth considering is an underground story today.
But this does not fit with the paradigm of the last century, where gatekeepers determine hits and the public consumes such, reporting is out of touch.
This is not only prevalent in streaming television, but music. Spotify told us last week... The share of the stars is coming down, music from around the globe is getting significant listens and independents are growing.
But all we hear about is Lady Gaga's new album. I'm sure people are listening to it, but not most. It's a return to what once was, as Gaga tries to recapture her success in the popular music world. We've been distracted by her work with Tony Bennett and in film so unless you're a student of the game you don't realize that other than a movie song, her work has been disappointing commercially for years.
Meanwhile, in the independent sphere you have acts testing the limits, because they're less worried about maintaining the commercial juggernaut. It's the same as it was in the late sixties and early seventies. Hit acts are hit dependent, the fans come and go, but the acts who made albums back then, who are independent today, can work forever, because they have DIEHARD FANS!
Fans of streaming television are making "Adolescence" a hit. They're always looking for something new, they're not brain dead and only watching HBO like it's 1995. And when they find something they like, they tell everybody they know about it. This is how you know if you have a hit, is anybody talking about it?
HBO and the rest of the companies married to the old paradigm believe that by dripping out episodes week by week they're building momentum, water cooler talk. In an on demand world where we want it all and we want it now, this is out of touch. If you induce any friction, you're leaving people out. People love to binge, love to marinate in the story, THAT'S PART OF THE EXPERIENCE!
But HBO has its PR team. Working the media constantly. Dropping stories week after week to feed that water cooler talk. But there is none.
Now there is talk about "Severance," I'm getting e-mail about that, but Apple has so little product it's afraid of the one time drop, for fear people will sign off. This is backwards. You don't screw your customers to pad your bottom line anymore, you superserve your customers and then they testify about you!
Like Netflix. Where churn is de minimis.
Because Netflix puts out a plethora of product, and with both music and filmed entertainment, you never know what's good until it's done. So you've got to come up to bat many times.
People are believers in Netflix. I've never heard a young 'un talk about HBO... It doesn't square with them. Little product that appeals to their parents dripped out over months? Who needs that, if you want me I'll be in the bar, or on TikTok, or the big kahuna of streaming, YouTube.
You adjust or die. And many newspapers have passed. And those who worked at them, or still have a job, lament this. But institutions only survive if they change and deliver what the public wants.
Mainstream entertainment coverage is a tool of PR people. As inauthentic as it gets. Why is there suddenly an interview with some star...oh, that's right, they've got a new movie or show coming out! As phony as it comes. Whereas TikTok is fluid, a constant river, which the public dips in and out of.
The public wants to feel that it's understood.
Or you can tie yourself to an old demo and when it dies you do too.
I wish I got as many e-mails about music as I did about streaming television (I get almost none about movies), but the story is the music scene is overwhelming, with a tsunami of product that mostly doesn't live up to the hype. Where's the one listen hit of yore? The anti-establishment statement?
"Adolescence" is successful because it's all available now. The public owns it, not the media. And it focuses on the one thing we're all doing, living life. There are acolytes of science fiction and fantasy, but we all relate to real life. But it's too scary for too many to touch.
The world changes whether you want it to or not.
And one thing is for sure , the starmaking machinery behind the popular song is moribund.
We're living in a free-for-all, but when something resonates, word spreads and it touches everybody.
And isn't it funny that the biggest streaming hits are totally original, don't fit in a known genre, are things we haven't seen before?
And they're almost all on Netflix: "Squid Game," "Baby Reindeer," "Apple Cider Vinegar"...
The public wants new and different. Sure, there's a market for sequels, but rarely are they anywhere close to the quality of the original.
Everybody's playing it safe.
That's not the way to succeed in today's market.
And just like in tech, failure is a badge of honor, AS LONG AS YOU GET BACK IN THE GAME!
Identity, credibility are everything today. But too much media has sacrificed this, and the public knows.
Just like it knows when it sees something great, like "Adolescence."
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