I don’t mean your clothes succumbing to centripetal forces during the spin cycle. I am referring to the mass churning of content that has reached a nauseating crescendo – everywhere and all the time.
Your inbox, the local deli, department store, tvOS – stuff is just being ejaculated onto us in a streaming orgy of rapid ephemeral consumption. None of our senses have been spared this onslaught.
“Would you care to taste this new Yerba plucked from the primeval forests along the Paraná River?…”
“May I interest you in the Dalai Llama’s new limited edition fragrance Eau d’Eclaircissement?…“
“Feel this against your cheek, our sweaters are made from the lovingly shorn soft groin hairs of the vicuña that visit our manufacture to snack on our organically raised graminoids...”
We have even created markets and products for the minimalist ascetics among us – after all ’tis the season and you can run but you cannot hide.
This past weekend, my concubine and I, warm and snug in our vicuña pajamas, sat sipping Yerba Mate from the adorned and hollowed calabash we had sustainably made by the last remaining ancestor of the Guarani people. We were scrolling through the offerings on TV+, Netflix, Hulu, OSN and Amazon Prime to select something to play between check-ins with our mobile announcements. We landed on Lonely Planet (2024) as we are planning a trip to Morocco and thought it would help get us in the mood.
Obviously the title is already off-putting as one cannot help but associate it with the publication that was founded on the principle of democratizing global travel bringing to mind cruise ships docked in a Venetian quay. But what is one to do when there are a million channels and nothing to watch.
It didn’t take long for the stench of perishable pablum to fill the room as the hotel concierge manufactures a puzzled look and puts to bestselling author Firstname Lastname (played by Laura Dern) the presumptuous question – where is the rest of your luggage – to drive home the point that it has been lost in case we missed it checking in on our socials.
The movie is splattered throughout with asian squat shits taken on Morocco’s charmingly unreliable and primitive infrastructure – plumbing problem, day long flat repair, food poisoning, pickpockets. I thought back to Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Sheltering Sky (1990) and couldn’t help but draw a cinematic trajectory from depth to disposability between that North African journey and this one.
None need go too far past the titles to recognize that Lonely Planet stands as a stark counterpoint to The Sheltering Sky. One, a dense and layered exploration of existential dislocation as the protective canopy spread across the brutal beauty of the North African desert ultimately proves incapable of shielding us from life’s harsh realities, the other a disappointing mistake picked up at the second window of the drive-thru at Aïn Sebaâ.
One, based on a novel by Paul Bowles featuring complex authentic characters transformed by the land that birthed Albert Camus, the other a trite screenplay ironically about published authors, each an archetype caricature easily recognized by members of the book club, who could have retreated together anywhere on this Lonely Planet.
This cinematic arc, from The Sheltering Sky to Lonely Planet, reflects the same flattening of experience that has taken place in travel and culture.
Whereas travel was once a source of self-confrontation and discovery, today it’s increasingly curated for instant consumption and digital display. The depth and introspection have faded, replaced by the immediacy of a good shot, a short post, a quick caption, and then — onwards. This cultural shift aligns disturbingly well with our broader throwaway society, where trends emerge and fade with algorithmic speed, often lacking in substance and resilience.
Set aside whether the comparison is fair. One could certainly find motion pictures today that would stand as giants against a Lilliputian release from the past starring Hulk Hogan for example.
Nevertheless, the juxtaposition suggests an unsettling trend: as we become more adept at “capturing” experiences, we may lose our ability to experience them with a modicum of profundity. Like the protagonists in The Sheltering Sky, we may find ourselves facing a void that cannot be filled by images or fleeting impressions, no matter how well composed they are.
In the 1990s, an average of 300-400 films were released annually in the U.S., but by 2022, that number exceeded 800 for theatrical releases alone. Add in the exponential increase in streaming content, with platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Disney+ producing hundreds of original films and series annually, and the volume far outpaces prior decades.
While a 1990s movie might take 2-3 years from development to release, today’s films (particularly those for streaming) are often greenlit, shot, edited, and distributed within 12-18 months. Studios are incentivized to turn around films quickly to maintain their subscriber bases, leading to a higher output at the cost of depth and craftsmanship.
Streaming platforms have fostered a trend where films and shows are binged, briefly discussed, and then swiftly forgotten as audiences move on to the next release. Netflix, for instance, measures success not by critical acclaim or cultural staying power but by “watch time” within the first 28 days, a metric that favors quick, digestible content over films with long-term resonance.
In theaters, films used to have a longer shelf life, with popular movies sometimes staying for months. Streaming platforms, however, rely on immediate viewership data to determine a title’s success, often leading to titles being quickly promoted and then “buried” in the feed once new content is released.
A 2022 report from Ampere Analysis noted that 75% of titles on streaming platforms are not “flagship” content but are there to pad libraries and keep viewers constantly engaged.
Research shows viewers are increasingly unable to recall what they watched on streaming services after a short period, a stark contrast to the memorable films of previous decades that left lasting impressions.
What is more, and perhaps paradoxically so, is that while stuff is blasting out at us through a high pressure hose, this fecundity has not yielded greater diversity. Quite the contrary. All safe travel options anywhere in the world will have espresso available. Anywhere you go today that has a pharmacy in town or big-box grocery store will probably carry the toothpaste you use back home. Certain fruits and vegetables can be had the world over anywhere at any time.
The easier it has become to travel, the less reason there is to do so as the upper middle-class flies from Four Seasons Whistler to Four Seasons Koh Samui with airport pickup and drop-off pre-arranged.
Remember when the world was drawing lessons from our COVID experience about the coked-up pace of the human experience and the impact it is having on this Lonely Planet? That didn’t last too long.
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