The Mid-April Download: What’s Dominating Your Screens Right Now
As mobile viewing dominates, narrative forms are adapting. We are already seeing "vertical dramas" (60-second episodes shot in portrait mode) gaining traction in Asia. The next Steven Spielberg may not direct a 2-hour film but a 100-episode vertical series designed for the subway commute. ersties2023tinderinreallife2action2xxx upd
In the race to be first, UPD media often sacrifices fact-checking. A breaking news story on TikTok might be entirely fabricated. Misinformation and "rage bait"—content designed to elicit angry engagement—thrives because engagement is the only metric that matters. In the race to be first, UPD media
As online dating continues to grow, it's having a profound impact on how people interact in real life. For one, it's become more common for friends to meet through online platforms rather than traditional social settings. According to a survey by the Pew Research Center, in 2020, 59% of Americans believed that online dating was a good way to meet people, while 42% knew someone who had met a romantic partner online. As online dating continues to grow, it's having
No discussion of UPD entertainment would be complete without acknowledging its pathologies. The same participatory dynamics that empower also destabilize.
The next frontier is not human-made UPD but AI-assisted or AI-generated content. Tools like Midjourney, Runway Gen-2, and voice cloning are already being used to create short films, parody songs, and deepfake commentary. This raises a profound question: When content is generated by a prompt from a user, is it still "User-Published"? And how do we regulate IP when an AI replicates a celebrity’s likeness?