On Second Screen Content:

 On Second Screen Content:

I was suggested this YouTube video by the algorithm which I found quite interesting: Slop Economics - YouTube. 

The video is about the incentive of companies like Netflix to not produce quality movies, but instead produce things that are just good enough to keep people subscribed. The video refers to this as slop, and goes into detail, a bit wandering at times, about the economics of slop when it comes to streaming movies, video games, and music. The economics of the entertainment industry is something I always enjoy digging into and will probably come back to, but I wanted to focus on just one of the topics covered in the video, which is designing movies and TV shows to be watched on a "second screen."

Second screen content is when a show is designed to be understood by a distracted audience. Netflix is now making their shows to be watched while you look at your phone. Any information shown is also explained in dialogue. A description of this mentioned in the linked video uses the term "visual muzak."

Anyone who has ever heard a single piece of writing advice has probably been told, "show don't tell." While there are a lot of ways "show don't tell" can be interpreted, from individual sentence structure to entire plot arcs, in the case of film, one way it can be applied is by conveying information about the story through a visual element rather than characters just saying what happened. In the first Star Wars movie we are shown how evil the empire is when they kill Luke's aunt and uncle. Luke also has a line where he states that he hates the empire, but the scene that makes you the audience understand what he's fighting against is the one where it's shown.

If streaming platforms are now producing content where they make sure to "tell" what's going on so distracted viewers can keep up, then by all writing logic, this content will be worse. That is usually a bad thing. Usually.

Perhaps we should consider an alternative to quality simply being worse so it can cater to the lowest common denominator of distracted viewers. Perhaps we shouldn't dismiss all content made to be second-screen content as bad. We should separate it into a different category. We already separate shows into genres. If I don't want to watch a romantic comedy today, and I'd rather watch an action movie, then I can find something in that genre. The next day I may feel differently. A lot of people intentionally want second screen content to put on while doing other things. At other times people will want things they can give their full attention to. Why settle for one?

We should rate movies and TV shows based on their "Primary Screen" vs "Secondary Screen" rating. Neither is bad, so long as that's what it's made for, but we should just be honest about it. When you recommend a movie you saw, include if it's the kind of movie to pay attention to or have on in the background. As more content is made to be consumed on a second screen, creating a show that can be followed along without paying attention to it and still provide entertainment will become its own art form. A second screen show doesn't need to be a bad thing, but we should be honest about which screen it belongs on. My hope is that someday an actor doing the press rounds will proudly boast that their latest movie is the best second screen movie of the year. And I'll know to skip it.

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