In a bit of synchronicity, this is the third article I've read today talking about the problem of living in a culture where all songs and all movies are instantly available. Which, of course, we all love, but it's also had all these unintended side effects which damage institutions of culture: bookstores, record stores, film series.

I've been writing up a blog post (for work) about this very thing. I'm also referencing Bowling Alone which makes many of the same points.

I've been writing up a blog post (for work) about this very thing.

It's in the air, right? I really think we're undergoing a huge sea-change in how we receive culture and we really don't understand the implications. But we're starting to see some of the downside along with all the positives.

Some of the articles about DC's reboot have noted that they'll also make download versions available on the day of release, and what's going to happen to comic book stores then? Those of you who had holds at your store and talked to the clerks and browsed for stuff for your nieces and nephews and got cool buttons for The Umbrella Academy. That's going to be in jeopardy just as record stores and book stores have become scarce.

Wasn't it a Patton Oswalt piece a few months ago about how everything available all the time ruined being a geek or some shit?

About movies, specifically, a bit of Ebert's recent column for Newsweek/the Daily Beast gets at it also.

Ebert laments the communal joy of going to a movie theater to see a great movie (vice watching quality TV by yourself) and a commenter points out that Ebert's movie-going experience is not the usual.

A lot of folks would rather watch a movie by themselves than risk the shared experience happen with jerks (like the Alamo Drafthouse girl); I'm not sure, but it's possible that hiveminds like the Buffistas will spring up around watch-and-post or other types of communal experience.

These will still be curated, though - the magic of meeting new people, being exposed to new stuff? Crazy random happenstance? Not sure how that is going to happen.

the magic of meeting new people, being exposed to new stuff? Crazy random happenstance? Not sure how that is going to happen.

Umm... there's an app for that?

I remember a poster on TT long, long ago talking about how ecstatically different the experience was the first time he saw a Preston Sturges comedy on a big screen in a fairly crowded theater -- he'd seen the entire canon on late-night PBS and the old AMC and on scritchy little screens in the media section of his grad school library, and he had a loving, reverent appreciation for how breathtakingly whipsmart and pointed Sturges could be, but when he saw it in a theater full of smart but slightly different people, all cracking up at slightly different things and everyone's giddy laughter getting everyone else going, he found himself laughing so hard his entire midsection was sore the next day.

The Alamo Drafthouse woman and her ilk are a definite, hideous hazard in a group moviegoing experience, but when it's good it can be so very good.

My drop everything movies are Velvet Goldmine and Bring it On.

Yes! These, plus Beautiful Thing, A Room With A View, and Dr. Strangelove.

I saw Super 8 and X-Men: FC this weekend. Loved them both.

I like seeing comedies and blockbusters with a group. The energy is part of the experience. Smaller films I will go see in the theater to support indie cinema, but they can be ruined for me by rude patrons.

the magic of meeting new people, being exposed to new stuff? Crazy random happenstance? Not sure how that is going to happen.

In terms of your second question, I get exposed to new music more often through Pandora than I ever did in a music store - I wasn't ever a devoted enough browser to try random things. I have watched more new movies since getting Netflix Instant Queue than ever before as well, and my Kindle has made me much more likely to try whole new generes of fiction. I used to think that without physical bookstores I wouldn't get the same "browse for something random" experience, but my last visits to Barnes and Nobles have made me realize that the experience there is carefully crafted to be just as commercial and limited as the Amazon Bestsellers Lists / Recommendations for You. I get most of my good recommendations for new things to try the same way I always have: friends, coworkers, random people on TV, and internet forums. I don't think that the loss of traditional media outlets changes that.

As to the fist and third parts, I don't think that changing the way we access and imbibe media is going to change the social nature of humans. People need to meet each other, and they find ways to do it. Random happenstance is called that because it is random, and can happen as easily at the grocery store, the Starbucks, or the bagel place as the comic book store.