"Taste Hierarchies Like These Stink"

What’s coming into focus more gradually is how bad things are getting for those of us in the audience, too . Something that’s long bothered me and Erin about the hegemony of streaming is that if you do away altogether with physical media, you put yourself at the mercy of corporate accountants (who might decide there’s insufficient R.O.I. when it co... See more

For the sake of post-nutshell clarity, assertions like literature is inherently more serious than games boil down to two anxieties, one material and one aesthetic:

1) The underfunding of the humanities. As college deans and corporate executives shred venues dedicated to reading, writing, and the instruction of reading and writing, many of literature... See more

Watching this from inside the media, I’ve experienced two contradicting feelings. First is a kind of powerlessness from working in an industry with waning influence amid shifting consumption patterns. The second is the notion that the craft, rigor, and mission of traditional journalism matter more than ever.

The advent of streaming, and cord-cutting, allowed viewers a more intentional relationship to TV, at least in theory. When Netflix and other platforms began dumping entire seasons of shows at once, binging became a byword for paying deep attention, as viewers gave themselves over to intricate drama or quirky comedy. But now we’re learning to stream... See more