So few people wanting to talk about anything of any substance

Still from the film 'Clerks' (1994) a black-and-white comedy presenting the working hours of a day in the lives of Dante Hicks (Brian O’Halloran) and Randal Graves (Jeff Anderson) as two disenchanted 20-something store clerks. Earlier this week, I read Mike Caulfield's announcement that he's started a new film podcast with Jim Groom(!) Since then, I haven't been able to get this section of his post out of my head:

I tried to talk to a number of people I used to talk with about films, like 10 years ago, all the time. They turned out to not be able to talk about films anymore. They would get two beats into talking about the plot of a movie then veer off and start talking about how this film either shows how their political position is right, or — if it shows them to be wrong –how this is evidence of a vast Hollywood conspiracy.

Much of the time, films which used to be a joy to these people as films had become something else. Films were now political evidence. Worse than that, every film was proof they had been right about some argument they were constantly running in their head.

More often though, they just got bored. Films? So little dopamine and adrenaline compared to what was on their feeds that day.

This is the world we live in now. So few people wanting to talk about anything of any substance.

I'm looking forward to watching/listening to the podcast, which is entitled Couch to 4K.

Source: Hapgood

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