We simply must admit that the theory of evolution has been fully disproven. Somewhere in a sterile laboratory, there is a scientist clutching a clipboard, convinced that humanity is incrementally improving because a finch in the Galapagos grew a slightly more efficient beak. Their every waking moment watching their little isolated world get somehow magically, though incrementally, a slightly superior version of the one they documented 14 years ago. Let’s leave them there. Let them have their delusions. They don’t own a television. They do not have a Netflix subscription. And they certainly haven’t tried to navigate a replacement bus service to the generic North of England.
For forty years, I have been a front-row spectator to the Great De-acceleration. What used to be a window into a vast world of intricate wonders has morphed into a “visual radiator”—a glowing rectangle we sit in front of to stay warm while the world ends. The pinnacle of human creativity has devolved, and nobody seems concerned. The global state of affairs and the chaos we are subjected to through this medium seem immune to the true problem that this global community is experiencing.
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I speak, of course, of the medium of film and television. The Great Pixelated Betrayal.
This may be Google’s fault. YouTube should not be considered as ‘quality programming.’ YouTube, a platform once reserved for blurry videos of cats falling off pianos, is now the primary medium for podcasts. I don’t know how the rest of you consume your “content,” but I’ve always viewed podcasts as a necessary medical intervention—a digital morphine drip to numb the sensory horror of the walk between a delayed Thameslink train and an overpriced sourdough bakery. Now, I am expected to watch two men in hoodies talk about their morning routines. I am expected to watch people talk about nothing rather than my step. This isn’t natural selection, it’s artificial selection in reverse. We’re actively choosing the inferior product. With ads.
1999 saw the peak of TV in Aaron Sorkin’s “The West Wing.” This can be summarised as ‘competent people walking fast in corridors.’ This should appeal to any Londoner; we are a people whose only shared religion is the brisk, aggressive pace of someone who is three minutes late for a meeting they have no desire to be in, but it is definitely more important than the child they have just obliviously knocked over.
Contrast that with our current era of “Peak Content.” We recently witnessed the release of Melania, a documentary that reportedly cost $75 million and features a scene of the former First Lady performing “Billie Jean” in the back of a car. It received a 7% critical rating. Seven percent. And one star from The Guardian. The production was so catastrophic that members of the crew reportedly lobbied to have their names removed from the credits, a level of professional shame usually reserved for people who work in unpaid internships for payday loan companies.
This follows the trail blazed by the Kim Kardashian divorce drama, that, in a review by The Guardian, on a scale of 1-5 stars, received zero. It implies that these shows didn’t just fail to entertain; they actively sucked the existing joy out of the atmosphere like a cultural black hole. The review for “Melania” went a step further. After the original piece was published, a correction was issued: the editors decided they had been far too generous and stripped away its lone, solitary star. These projects pass through writers, producers, and executives - entire committees of people with degrees and expensive spectacles - and they all looked at the finished product and said, “This is fine.”
The rich dialogue of Sorkin’s Jed, CJ, Toby and Josh has disintegrated into a woman crying that her entire life was on a “pocket-sized slate” that has fallen in the Thames. And nobody from the House of Lords has done anything about it. The Metropolitan Police do not care.
I am not suggesting we return to the era of harrowing documentaries. I hate documentaries. Why would I watch a ninety-minute exposé on the collapse of the bee population when I can just look out the window at a pigeon in a puddle?
I am suggesting something far simpler: we stop pretending that sitting in front of a screen is a cultural act. It is not. It is just light hitting our eyes until we fall asleep; our brains surrendering to the void. The algorithm has won not because it is smarter than us, but because we have collectively agreed that warmth—the comfort of the radiator—is worth more than the view from the window. And perhaps that is the real mathematical impossibility: that we knew better, and chose this anyway.
There are still the brave few who look out at this world and challenge the status quo, and this results in post-modern dark comedy dramas that, if anything, result in a frank discussion with your wife about why you shouldn’t be allowed to control the viewing schedule during our Christmas break. Those brave few. I tried to join them. I failed.
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