Apple’s Vision Pro and Meta’s Quest have opened the door to spatial popular media. Concerts in the metaverse (e.g., Travis Scott in Fortnite) will become standard. Entertainment will no longer be on a screen; it will surround you.
The economics of entertainment content have flipped. Historically, studios and labels owned the means of production. Today, creators own their audience. delphinefilms230309laurenphillipsxxx1080
No analysis of entertainment content and popular media would be complete without acknowledging the shadows. The same algorithms that connect us also radicalize us. YouTube’s recommendation engine has been widely documented to push users from mainstream content towards increasingly extreme "alt-right" or conspiratorial videos. What begins as a search for a funny clip about aliens ends, via many clicks, with flat-earth theory. Apple’s Vision Pro and Meta’s Quest have opened
Furthermore, the creator economy runs on burnout. The pressure to constantly produce content—to "feed the beast"—leads to mental health collapses. Unlike a film actor who works for three months and rests, a popular TikToker must post 10 times a day to stay relevant. The human being is becoming a content factory. The economics of entertainment content have flipped
Finally, there is the issue of labor. While top creators earn millions, the vast majority of popular media is now generated by gig workers (video editors, thumbnail designers, captioners) paid poverty wages, or by AI. The human cost of your endless scroll is rarely visible.