Comments on: TV is Porn

By: Overcoming Dumbness

Overcoming Dumbness — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 10:08:38 +0000

The Internet of today may become the TV of tomorrow because of the accelerating future.

By: TGGP

TGGP — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 21:31:18 +0000

But isn’t Hollywood winner-take-all territory where established actors are the highest paid, and those tend to be older (and hence not as hot)?

Lastly I’ll note that an actual porn star, Sibel Kekilli, did a rather good job of acting in Gegen die Wand/Duvara Karsi/Head On.

By: Eliezer Yudkowsky

Eliezer Yudkowsky — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 20:56:36 +0000

I think it’s a mistake to assume that director preferences provide a transparent window on viewer preferences. Somewhere on the Internet is a webpage which claims that many “big hits” have paid large amounts of money to a scriptwriter for a script with a real plot, used relatively unknown actors, ignored focus groups, and had some other characteristics I forget; the question being, why doesn’t Hollywood do this more often, since it is associated with making money?

I suspect that Hollywood has biases of its own, leading to the regular production of movies which predictably suck. I suspect that someone who knew Hollywood in intimate detail could write a whole book about how much they malfunction.

By: frelkins

frelkins — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 20:32:24 +0000

@poke

“whether you’re already famous for unrelated reasons”

That Tila Tequila (http://www.okmagazine.com/news/view/7070 for you old fogies) is heralded as the It Girl of the future, and that Paris Hilton remains a “star” is complete proof of your thesis, alas.

By: luke h.

luke h. — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 20:17:15 +0000

I think an important cause is being neglected (or ignored) here: channel surfing. Every single TV show has to be micromanaged to a ridiculous extent, in order to make sure that anyone flipping haphazardly through channels will be “grabbed” by what they see and want to stick around long enough to see a commercial or two. From the perspective of a bottom-line-obsessed network exec, hiring “hotter” actors and actresses is a no-brainer, given the need to compete with 500+ other channels that most people view for less than a second.

By: constant

constant — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 17:50:34 +0000

For some reason people love to believe that the world is getting worse.

Probably because it really is. Worse and better are subjective because preference is subjective. If you place greatest value on things that were at their height when you were young, which people tend to do, then, as measured by your set of preferences, the world gets progressively worse as time goes by.

By: Nominull

Nominull — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 17:34:38 +0000

It’s hard for me to read that article when my eyes keep rolling.

By: Hal Finney

Hal Finney — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 17:18:49 +0000

I too wonder about the point poke raises. Were things really better in the past? So often we see perceptions of the past colored by nostalgia and selective memories.

I’m always hearing people say how pop music is no good today and was so much better when they were kids. But I’m older than most people saying that, so from my perspective, the music they remember so fondly was disappointing compared to what I heard growing up. But then I know that my parents thought my generation’s music was much worse than what they listened to.

For some reason people love to believe that the world is getting worse. I’ll bet we were more optimistic about trends back in the olden days…

By: Robin Hanson

Robin Hanson — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 17:02:32 +0000

Jason, oops, sloppy of me to forget that.

By: Sister Y

Sister Y — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 16:47:28 +0000

Couldn’t you also argue that those who don’t watch TV should be more likely to look at porn?

Yeah, shouldn’t our first thought when someone’s arguing that two goods are similar is that they’re substitutes?

Network TV positioning itself as a (hilariously poor, as frelkins points out) substitute for pornography, rather than providing narrative or other experiences, would be an amusing explanation for the fact that it’s hemhorraging market share to HBO and the Internet, which either provide better porn or more interesting non-porn experiences.