Words can be forever

MTV News announced today that it would lay off a bunch of writing staff and freelancers, and pivot towards short-form video content. It joins many other media companies who’ve recently said they’d be doing the exact same thing, including Mashable, Vocativ, and Upworthy.

My heart goes out to those who’ve been laid off. But I’m also concerned about the state of online media, which seems to temporarily think video will bring in the CPM rates and revenues that it’s constantly in search of. The money behind online video is very frothy and enthusiastic right now, but that froth will give way to a couple of harsh realities: namely, that it’s costly to produce video at scale (arguably even more costly than writing), and that there aren’t enough people out there to consume all this video to make it worth it.

In a spectacular Twitter thread tonight, film critic Matt Zoller Seitz laid out an impassioned argument for the written word. Rather than embed all the tweets, I’m just going to reproduce the text here. It deserves to be read in its entirety in one flow (But Matt: if you’re reading this and want me to take this down in favor of the tweets, just hit me up):

I rarely watch videos instead of reading articles/summaries. Who is watching all the video that is supposedly such a gold mine? Every day I see a link that gets me interested, then I click over and see it’s video only, no text, and I don’t watch. I see how hard video teams work to produce sixty seconds of professional quality content. How are these economics going to create profit? I’ve written/edited/produced/narrated literally hundreds of hours of video content. That shit takes forever to do well. It’s really hard. Even when I’m partnered with an editor (usually @stevensantos) video is time consuming. And Steven works fast as hell. Hours to make 5 mins.

The new god video is a time suck. It’s as if we’ve been told that we should stop typing and start carving pictograms into stone tablets. Video content that is widely viewed and easily monetized tends to be shit somebody captured on their cell phone. Not slickly produced stuff. One of the reasons I’ve moved away from video and back toward the written word is, I reach more people and I get to have a life. People still quote/link to/argue about pieces I wrote 15, 20 years ago. With a few conspicuous exceptions, my videos have not endured.

That’s not to downplay the quality of the video essays. I know I did (or enabled) excellent work in that form. But there are other factors. Viewing software evolves. Platforms die off. Media outlets close without notification. Some of my best stuff won’t play anymore. Meanwhile, a PDF somebody made of my capsule review of SPHERE from 1998 has been read probably 100s of thousands of times.

All this is a big part of the reason I’ve focused so much on books. Whether they sell well or poorly, the books endure. They can be found. I’m thinking about writing some short chapbook-type paperbacks on various subjects, print-only. I don’t care how many copies they sell. I want to build an actual library of stuff that won’t be rendered unplayable/unlistenable/unlinkable by technological/economic shifts.

This is all the result of soul-searching, the upshot of which is, I’d rather be cherished by a few than skimmed/clicked by many. Fuck that. The digital-era iceberg is melting and eventually every critic, including me, will get pushed into the sea. Nobody can stop that, probably. At some point even legacy outlets might decide there’s no point paying writers. And I’ll be photocopying stuff at Staples and selling it.

My first publication was a comics newsletter that I edited and published myself, on my elementary school mimeograph machine. I know of at least 3 schoolmates who saved copies, plus copies of plays I wrote in 4th/5th grade that they acted it. This stuff MATTERS. If you are a writer you have stories like this. People save words that matter to them for whatever reason. Books. Printouts. Letters. Cards.

Obviously I am not an expert in the monetization of video content/branded content/sponsored etc, so take this with a grain of salt, but: It sickens me to see the entire online “content machine” treating words as they were nothing more than dirt accumulating on a video screen.

The word “content” sickens me. And “post.” Call your work articles, essays, reviews, stories. You are artists! Respect yourself. I’m about two Tweets away from wandering the neighborhood with a sandwich board ringing a bell, so that’s it for tonight. Peace.

I don’t agree with everything here (for instance, I don’t look down my nose at the concept/terminology of “content”) but I agree with the main thrust of Matt’s argument: “The digital-era iceberg is melting, and eventually every critic will get pushed into the sea.”

There is simply too much supply and not enough demand for media companies to be able to pay hundreds of people a living wage (plus benefits) to write movie reviews or TV recaps for a living. And when the economics stop making sense, how will your work endure? Seitz argues that physically printed books, or more longform material of some sort, are a good way to go. I’m inclined to agree.

I’d better get to work.

I feel bad for the people on ‘Planet of the Apps’

Billy Disney has created a video review of Apple’s new show, “Planet of the Apps,” for The Outline. It’s a brutal, well-edited, well-reasoned takedown. And while I think Disney might’ve been a wee bit selective with how he negatively portrays the show’s judges, he’s clearly not too hard on the show itself, which appears to be a disaster (see also: Maureen Ryan’s review for Variety).

The biggest bummer of this whole thing is the fate that has befallen these app developers and entrepreneurs. My guess is many of them went into Planet of the Apps in good faith, and hoping that the exposure would help them gain some kind of differentiation in an extremely crowded market with well-funded incumbents. Instead, they’ve been given dubious advice by the show’s judges and become the subject of some tone deaf marketing to boot.

Like Disney, I hope the recent hiring of Zack Van Amburg and Jamie Erlicht from Sony foretells a bright future for Apple’s original programming. It’s certainly difficult to imagine it getting worse.

My three favorite episodes of ‘Master of None: Season 2’

Aziz Ansari and Alan Yang’s Master of None: Season 2 is a revelation. It takes the themes from the show’s first season and deepens them, with a balance of irreverence and emotional maturity that is rare to see in pop culture these days.

All that said, I did find the second season to be a bit uneven. While season 1 is pretty much as close as you can get to a perfect debut season,  there were a few duds for me in this batch (e.g. “Door #3” was particularly rough). But when season 2 hits its mark, it is transcendent.

As a tribute to one of my favorite TV viewing experiences of the year, here are my three favorite episodes from the season. Spoilers ahead.

S2E04 – First Date: As someone who has been on dozens of first dates via online dating apps, this episode accurately captures the thrills and disappointments of meeting lots of women in rapid-fire succession. Online dating provides the opportunity to encounter all kinds of interesting people, some of whom might actually be good friends in another life. But when two good-natured people are placed in the confines of this artificial construct (i.e. the first date), it can be immensely challenging to have a good time.

One thing the episode does a great job of establishing is how there’s typically a ceiling on how well a first date can go. Even if the chemistry is great, the plan for the date is perfect, and everything is firing on all cylinders, at the end of the night there’s a big possibility you’re going to go home by yourself, bathe in the glow of that experience, and try to re-create it again later on in the week (possibly with the same person). It’s an intense and dehumanizing process that asks you to place a great deal of hope in the possibility of a meaningful connection (otherwise why go on the date in the first place?) but balance it with the possibility that it will go horrendously wrong. And even if things do great, there’s no guarantee that more will come of it.

Love in the age of the smartphone is difficult.

S2E08 – Thanksgiving: My parents brought my brother and me to America in search of a better life, but they had a lot of difficulty accepting the values that this better life would instill in us. Why didn’t we want to become doctors or lawyers? Why didn’t we go to a Chinese-speaking church? Why did we place so much emphasis on our own individuality and self-determination? Why did I spend so much time watching movies?

For every single one of these decisions (and dozens of others), a pattern would emerge: My mother would fight us tooth and nail on the issue at hand. Then, over time (sometimes years or decades), she would start to accept our choices. And then, without us even realizing it, she would start to have new, revised standards over how we should live our lives that would factor in the new state of play.

I don’t think I’ve seen a single piece of art better capture my own personal experience as an Asian immigrant growing up in a conservative household than Master of None’s “Thanksgiving” episode. I know that sounds odd to say, seeing as how this episode is really about the relationship between an African-American mother (played by Angela Bassett) and her lesbian daughter Denise (played by series regular Lena Waithe). But this dynamic is one I’ve seen play out in my life and many of my friends lives, all of whom also have tough, conservative parents. It’s fundamentally about a child deviating from the morals and expectations of their parents, and how this can be initially met with intense resistance to the point where the relationship, as a whole, is in danger of disintegrating.

In the end though, often, if you’re lucky, parents come around. They might not ever explicitly say they accept you or your lifestyle or your decisions. They might not wholeheartedly approve. But they still love you and accept you as a child. They still want you to live a happy, healthy life. And as this episode attests to, they will still welcome your friends and loved ones to the Thanksgiving dinner table. What a lovely, moving way to communicate the concept of parental love.

I watched this episode with my significant other and when it was over, we both turned to each other with tears in our eyes. We knew we’d seen something so beautiful and authentic together. It’s an episode I’ll be thinking about for a very long time.

S2E09-E10 – Amarsi Un Po and Buona Notte: Okay, it is kind of a cheat to list two episodes here, but since I consider this essentially a two-episode arc, I’m going to go with it. The final two episodes of the season are the culmination of a season-long storyline in which Dev, who has had a difficult time with love all season, falls in love with his engaged friend Francesca.

To desire someone who’s promised themselves to another is a special kind of hell. It’s the thrill of the forbidden, the excitement at the universe of possibilities open to you two, and the sadness of violating a third party’s trust, all mixed together in a messy cocktail. What’s special about these two episodes (beyond their gorgeous cinematography and references to Italian films such as L’Eclisse) is how well they capture this impossible situation. The chemistry that Dev has with Francesca plays out wonderfully, especially since we’ve seen how horrible some of his dates have been earlier on in the season. But I also enjoyed the slow revelation of what it is that Dev is asking for: is Francesca just supposed to leave everything she’s ever known and loved for what might just be a fling? Even if the connection is real? There are no easy answers.

Towards the end of the episode, Francesca is watching a smartphone video of one of the ridiculously cute “dates” the two of them have had. As Pino asks if she’s ready to leave, we cut to black.

At first I thought this episode was going to pull a Before Sunset and end right there, in stunning ambiguity. But we fade in to Dev’s apartment and see Francesca and Dev in bed together. Francesca’s engagement ring is gone.

I was pretty certain this was also meant to be ambiguous (perhaps it was a dream sequence, which is definitely something the show has pulled before). In an interview at Vulture, Aziz Ansari basically confirms this is what he was going for:

The ending, I’m going to be a little coy about sharing my own personal interpretation, but I will say I was curious what people would think of the ending. It’s been interesting to read people’s thoughts on it. I looked at a couple of things and talked to a few friends and stuff, and the sweetest thing I’ve found is that people are saying it reminds them of my favorite ending of anything, which is the end of Before Sunset, which I think is incredible. I read something where someone says there’s the Before Sunset test, which is “Okay, if you’re a romantic you think they’re in bed together and you think that things are going to be great.” If you’re another type of person, you think, “Oh, they’re together and it’s going to be horrible.” Another person could say, “Oh, I think it’s just a fantasy and she’s thinking about how terrible it would be if she actually went through with it.” Another person could say, “Oh, it’s Dev imagining it and how it would be actually not what he wants. It would be a shit show, like what Arnold was saying, that he’s just in love with the fantasy of her and not the real person.”

I think I would like to keep it that way, where it’s really dependent on who you are and where you are in your own head to decide what that thing means. I will say it’s not a flashback. It’s not a flashback to the blizzard scene because we’re wearing different clothes and she doesn’t have an engagement ring on.

So will we see what happens after this scene? Will Francesca and Dev live happily ever after? Will there even be a season 3 of Master of None? Time will tell. But if it happens, it’ll likely be just as messy and ambiguous and wonderful and hilarious as the rest of the show has been.

Art is now resistance

Corey Stoll has written a great essay about what it was like to play Brutus in the Trump-themed Shakespeare in the Park production of Julius Caesar:

In this new world where art is willfully misinterpreted to score points and to distract, simply doing the work of an artist has become a political act. I’m thankful for all the beautiful defenses of our production written in the last few weeks. But the cliché is true: In politics, when you’re explaining, you’re losing. So if you’re making art, by all means question yourself and allow yourself to be influenced by critics of good faith. But don’t allow yourself to be gaslighted or sucked into a bad-faith argument. A play is not a tweet. It can’t be compressed and embedded and it definitely can’t be delivered apologetically. The very act of saying anything more nuanced than “us good, them bad” is under attack, and I’m proud to stand with artists who do. May we continue to stand behind our work, and, when interrupted, pick it right back up from “liberty and freedom.”

I think the lack of proper education in our country is the root of many of our ills. In particular, education equips us with the ability to grasp and interpret complex works of art, and take away lessons from them that continue to be relevant.

The ferocity of the right wing response against this Caesar production, which doesn’t take into account any of its over-arching messages, is simply another saddening sign of the death of nuance in our discourse.

How the ‘Buena Vista Social Club’ sequel fell apart

Anne Thompson at Indiewire has a fascinating piece on how Lucy Walker’s sequel to The Buena Vista Social Club was woefully mishandled behind the scenes, leading to creative control getting wrested away from Walker and a disastrous theatrical performance:

The lessons here are obvious: Documentary filmmakers, especially those with living subjects, need to understand all legal agreements before agreeing to make a film. Direct relationships with the subjects, and with the people who control the film, are essential.

But in the saga of “Buena Vista Social Club,” no one comes out ahead. The band didn’t get the extra loving tribute and publicity boost for the end of their careers. They didn’t get a chance to attend the premiere at Sundance or walk the red carpet at the Oscars. The filmmakers lost valuable years of their short lives. And Broad Green lost a lot of money.

Another lesson: a good producer who has your back is worth their weight in gold.

See also: Indiewire’s reporting on Broad Green’s rocky start.

Trevor Noah, on the shooting of Philando Castile

This week, the officer who shot Philando Castile was found not guilty of second-degree manslaughter. Here are a few pieces of media that helped me understand and process this news.

Firstly, Radiolab has a two part podcast exploring why cops kill people in the line of duty and the aftermath of those officer-involved shootings. It’s a gut-wrenching listen, but worthwhile.

Shots Fired: Part 1

Shots Fired: Part 2

This podcast series was produced in partnership with the Tampa Bay Times, who’ve also produced a piece, “Why Cops Shoot,” that is a must-read.

In addition, I found Trevor Noah’s commentary to be meaningful and moving. He’s the only person of color (not to mention the only millennial) doing a late night show right now, and he’s using his unique position to speak from a perspective that is impossible for anyone else.

Giancarlo Esposito’s Fresh Air interview

I appreciated Giancarlo Esposito’s recent interview on Fresh Air, in which he opens about what it was like to make a career in Hollywood while being a mixed race actor:

I had to make a choice, and I made this choice over and over and over again in my life. I walk into an audition and I’m “Giancarlo Esposito” and they thought I was a white guy. … I walk into the audition and it’s all white guys sitting out in the waiting room and they come out and they’re like, “We’re sorry. We had no idea … you were black, so this is only for white guys.” …

We still check those boxes, right? And it says “African-American,” “Spanish,” you know, “Indian?” And I, all my life, have checked the box that that said “other.” Now, there’ s a connotation to that, too. I’m an “other”? How did I get to be an “other”? …

I’ve had to revisit this often, and I’m getting a little choked up now, because I believe that we hold ourselves in a way that also projects who we are. And if I project my humanity and I’m a human being, that goes beyond any color. It goes to the soul. … I want to be judged for who I am organically. I want to have real interactions not based on my color.