Since when do we need help to understand the most basic and simple plot coming together in a book?
At some point, we really lost the plot.
My mother used to say that I came out of the womb reading. I couldn't even read properly, but I'd make her sit with me and read me any book I'd find interesting based on the pictures it had when I was four. I then used to identify myself as a bookworm, in my teenage years. I found the self-title I put on muself quite endearing. And at that time, I think I realized for the first time that every significant moment in my life has been irrevocably linked to some form of art.
There are films I know more intimately than I have some of my lovers. If I slit my wrists it's possible that so many words, stories and poems, I've read over the years might come streaming down my arms. I am convinced, that if you try to dig into the center of me, instead of flesh and bone, you will find countless works of art, trying to still fit inside me.
I do like the saying that we are all museums of what and who we have met in our lifetime.
I believe it is fitting.
But it has come to a point, where it is difficult to even undestand a simple description in a museum.
Did the plethora of media available on the internet became too much to handle? Why is it that today, when a new movie drops in viewers find it more and more difficult to realize the hidden messages inside of it? If you ask any movie critic in the past, they could tell you that movies not even that far away from today, like the 80s and the 90s directors and writers didn't have to comply so much for the viewers to understand what they wanted to say. Today they've come to a point where it has to be too obvious: "Here, this is your villain, this one is the hero, oh look it is a break up coming up" .
When did we decided that simplicity is the way to go?
Some might argue that simplicity is needed. Not everything has to be complicated, and well-thought to make us think more. Sometimes people don't wanna think something too far. And that's ok. But what happens when compliance to simplicity becomes the norm?
We are used to scroll in our phones, check the content we like, maybe leave a nasty comment that no one asked for disguised as "constructive criticism" or just plain "criticism" and then get upset that no one can take it, just because someone wanted to be hateful on the internet. Apparently it is always easier to make others miserable than to uplift them.
Same goes for the media we consume everyday.
Why has it come to the point where we call out something for being "too complicated"? Why is it so tiring to let your brain think on its own?
We live in an era where everything has easy and quick access anywhere in the world. With just a click you can be informed about what happens on the other side of the world. You don't even have to look for a strange word in a dictionary, and browse through many pages to find its meaning anymore, you can just google it. AI and Chat GPT can help you, and search for you, or even write for you, what you need for your assignment this week.
It has become so simple and easy to search for answers. We don't really have to do much.
Simplicity in media is the new norm, that is already quite known. But do we honestly believe that the consequences behind this new norm will really leave us unsheathed?
