"When you're young, you look at television and think, there's a conspiracy, they have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that's not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want, and that's a far more depressing thought." Steve Jobs

submitted by EndlessSunflowers from self.quotes

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[–]jet199 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

Partly but also there's a lot of stupid people working in TV so they can only make things their level of smart.

Most stuff that's bad is bad because the writers are useless.

I heard someone saying that writing a screenplay is the middle class version of buying a lottery ticket and that's pretty spot on. They imagine if they get lucky they will get the millionaire lifestyle and have no thought to actually being good in anyway that's not going to get that outcome. So they write to what they think the gatekeepers want.

Then there's also the kudos of being a professional writer which some middle class are chasing which means their shows are more about them telling you how clever they are rather than trying to tell a good story.

Documentaries have the same problems.

Unfortunately many of these people do get stuff made because all the people making the decisions are from the same background and speak the same language.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

They imagine if they get lucky they will get the millionaire lifestyle and have no thought to actually being good in anyway that's not going to get that outcome. So they write to what they think the gatekeepers want.

I have a relative who wasted decades writing crappy books just for that reason, always writing what they thought was the style of book most likely to succeed. Unfortunately 10 years in they had one published and that fueled the delusion for more decades. Sad sad waste of life's opportunities.