I think Musk and Bezos and Zuckerberg, among others, believe their ownership of media companies and newspapers and social media platforms gives them not just influence, but the ability to dictate what American culture *is*, and I think they’re dead fucking wrong. - ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

figgityfigs.bsky.social • 27 days ago

I think Musk and Bezos and Zuckerberg, among others, believe their ownership of media companies and newspapers and social media platforms gives them not just influence, but the ability to dictate what American culture *is*, and I think they’re dead fucking wrong.

Comments

sheryl-w.bsky.social•26 days ago

We haven't been very effective in sending any message to them. On the contrary, we elected their guy, they sat in the front row for the inauguration & even have White House offices. They are all riding high.

Those of us on the other side blew it big time. The billionaires are golden for 4 yrs. 😠

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minimallycrazy.bsky.social•27 days ago

They're trying to do Reverse Audience Capture, and it's going to tank their whole fucking business model.

louisevans.bsky.social•27 days ago

they bought out the control room of the giant wizard puppet and are shocked to learn that that's not what the Emerald City actually consists of

louisevans.bsky.social•27 days ago

whoops! thanks for playing.

wiseowl374.bsky.social•27 days ago

10-12% of Post subscribers canceled after he spiked the Harris endorsement and the “thumb on the scale” has only become more noticeable. People will walk away and create culture themselves, as they always have.

unicorntickles.bsky.social•27 days ago

We’re posting on a site that is evidence of this phenomena too

bumpingalong.bsky.social•27 days ago

Won’t be sad when any of the old white boys who own these companies move to Mars or move on.

bumpingalong.bsky.social•27 days ago

And by move on, I mean disappear into the ground, buried deeply under heavy piles of dirt. Sooner than later.
#freeluigi

arvetis.bsky.social•27 days ago

Exploring Pluto

In the classical sense

godhatesyeast.bsky.social•27 days ago

three of the most uncultured humans ever

clyverose.bsky.social•27 days ago

They may know how algorithms work (honestly debatable re: Musk) but they do not seem to know much about how people work.

caliga.bsky.social•27 days ago

🎯

melico.bsky.social•27 days ago

Oh yeah, there is going to be so much shitty maga-pandering TV and movie content the next few years and most of it will absolutely flop.

chathamharrison.bsky.social•27 days ago

They've spent their whole professional lives in a very small cultural pond

thisbrokenwheel.bsky.social•27 days ago

Where they very demonstrably do not understand much of the media they read or watch.

jeninmotion.bsky.social•27 days ago

This is the problem. Nobody is STOPPING these guys from making "anti-woke" shit, it's just that it has to be good or at least decent. Also, it's just proof being upset by non-white men existing is a money-losing proposition.

figgityfigs.bsky.social•27 days ago

Like I bet Bezos thinks he’s gonna make some anti-woke Dirty Harry remake or some shit out of Amazon MGM and it’s gonna win best picture because Mel Gibson has been dispatched to get Hollywood in line and it’s just a laughable way of understanding how any of this works.

shoutingboy.bsky.social•27 days ago

It’ll be a blast when his mega-MAGA film gets blown out in awards season by EMILIA PÉREZ DOS

cinefilmag.bsky.social•27 days ago

Not enough people made fun of the Rings of Power for him to get a clue

crs1.bsky.social•27 days ago

I hate to see it... but retail is nowhere near as brutally competitive and not really a meritocracy (and yet) like entertainment, and yet glorified bean counters still think they can out-Beyonce, and have not even once been (sustainably) right

You can make Menudo after Menudo, but it grows brittle

ljevans.bsky.social•27 days ago

He needs to go watch Joseph Goebbels' masterpiece =Kolberg.=

figgityfigs.bsky.social•27 days ago

The #3 movie at the domestic box office last year, released after Trump’s election, was about bigotry and a fascist dictator trying to demonize and harm a vulnerable population.

realligeia.bsky.social•27 days ago

They are dead wrong.

mmcgrath.bsky.social•27 days ago

i’d wager one of the top grossing movies this year will be superman and from the trailer it’s gonna be pretty “woke” … that is to say, it will promote pro-social behavior

clyverose.bsky.social•27 days ago

Superman always promoted pro-social behaviour. Most superhero stories do.

mmcgrath.bsky.social•27 days ago

the snyder superman didn’t really

clyverose.bsky.social•27 days ago

Haven’t seen the full arc but my understanding is he was heading there.

The source material (ie comics) definitely has it in spades.
Also, Snyder has many talents; writing is not one of them.

The older animated films respect the source material more. Not every IP needs a live action reboot.

figgityfigs.bsky.social•27 days ago

I think to some degree Snyder misunderstood the character and to the rest of the degrees he was interested in different parts of it.

nutbunnies.bsky.social•27 days ago

I didn't see Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire I didn't realize it got that deep

fwordleproblems.bsky.social•27 days ago

Godzilla had some good ideas but he went too far imho.

figgityfigs.bsky.social•27 days ago

I don’t think conservative culture is resurgent or dominant to anywhere near the degree they seem to. We’re not about to see films topping the box office where the protagonists are giving children debilitating diseases and dragging grandmothers out of churches.

incompetusrex.bsky.social•27 days ago

“This hurts me more than you,” he says with tears streaming down his eyes.

“But it must de done for the greater good.”

kozmikkylekelly.bsky.social•27 days ago

Absolutely. I've worked at a movie theater for almost a decade. Every time one of those kinds of films or one of those silly QR-code-at-the-end Angel Studios movies comes out that doesn't get astroturfed, it makes very very little. Most of the general public aren't down for that.

ridgewaygirl.bsky.social•27 days ago

That's stuff that gets seen in theaters only by churches arranging field trips.

kozmikkylekelly.bsky.social•27 days ago

Absolutely, and I've seen church groups book one of these movies... it's like how they buy certain books in bulk and all of a sudden "#1 New York Times Bestseller!"

larougeabeille.bsky.social•27 days ago

📌

saysceej.bsky.social•27 days ago

I think there’s a stronger claim to conservatism on TV especially with the rise of the Sheridan-verse.

figgityfigs.bsky.social•27 days ago

Blue Bloods & shit. But like even a lot of the procedurals, if offensive from an ACAB POV, are not anti-woke Trumpy shit.

mosheroperandi.bsky.social•27 days ago

I still remember when Jack Bauer was torturing terrorists on 24. Now *that* was some conservative media.

faiseurdefemmes.bsky.social•27 days ago

Sheridan shows aren't conservative though, they just think they are because they have white men (mostly rich) doing good ol boy type jobs. Yellowstone especially is chock-full of what they term 'woke" story lines and a lot of them don't even realize it.

saysceej.bsky.social•27 days ago

Yeah. I am actually a fan of the stuff he writes. The stuff he just produces is mostly dreck. But Yellowstone and Landman are all about the fact that these guys are going to be gone in a generation and are unable to deal with it.

faiseurdefemmes.bsky.social•25 days ago

That's a good point about Yellowstone, I haven't had a chance to watch the latest season, and I think maybe I didn't finish the one before it. As for Landmark, I only started watching because I usually love anything with Billy Bob Thornton, but the Mom and Daughter storyline is very, very ick.

fat-teabskysocial.bsky.social•27 days ago

yeah, while there is a conservative vibe ascendant (or at least a dewoke vibe) it feels much worse because of how musk has skewed the twitter algorithm toward the nazis (and other social media are following suit).

outerleftfield.net•27 days ago

With Trump having been fully captured by Heritage, who are fucking weird rightwing nerds, I essentially expect their dreams of an American Totalitarian regime to get a wedgie for the ages (along with everyone in the country suffering and blaming them, as well as Zuck Musk and Bez along with them)

thepines.bsky.social•27 days ago

Again, he absolutely does think this!

rahabim.bsky.social•27 days ago

They came up with a whole "spy cinematic universe" thing for Citadel and it's hard to explain how little people cared about it.

saffship.bsky.social•27 days ago

Curious to see the response to the $40m melanoma movie. Talk about putting lipstick on a pig....

thepines.bsky.social•27 days ago

They absolutely do think this.

hudsonrivercroc.bsky.social•27 days ago

I would say they are partially right.

figgityfigs.bsky.social•27 days ago

Partially, sure. I don’t think that’s deniable. But I think they’ve got their hands on all the levers and they’re smart enough to fine tune them and it’s just absolutely not the case.

thepines.bsky.social•27 days ago

They're so fucking insulated from reality it's really bad for themselves in particular!

thepines.bsky.social•27 days ago

Ya unfortunately

thetweetgoeson.bsky.social•27 days ago

Bezos wants the Post Office.

captainahab.bsky.social•27 days ago

A lot of powerful people are operating as if American liberals/leftists simply no longer exist

captainahab.bsky.social•27 days ago

Kinda the inverse of the great corporate awokening of 2020

unicorntickles.bsky.social•27 days ago

A backlash perhaps.

I never operated under the delusion that corporate DEI was particularly effective at its goals but it’s chilling to see big companies just doing away with them so quickly and hastily.

americanlioness96.bsky.social•27 days ago

It's going to be funny when this blows up in their faces.

kitmik.bsky.social•27 days ago

yes, right-wingers think people are woke only because media tells them to be, through "propaganda" like seeing a gay couple in a tv show. so they think that if they create "anti-woke" media people are gonna automatically become anti-woke after watching it.

kitmik.bsky.social•27 days ago

western media about minorities in the past used to be almost always heavy and tragic. where they'd die at the end or something.
but after the great awokening in like 2017 a lot of the new 'woke' media was heartwarming and easy to watch.

kitmik.bsky.social•27 days ago

the reason 'woke' will prevail is because the masses love easy, feel-good shows that make them forget about their problems. for example, people LIKE seeing happy gay couples on tv because love is nice and it makes them feel warm and fuzzy inside. 'anti-woke' media is mean and joyless.