Julia Alexander hopped on the Vergecast for a very good conversation with David Pierce about whether YouTube’s taking over Hollywood, or at least whether the VidCon crowd is nosing into the movie theatre market.
On one hand, I’m inclined to agree with the concern from outlets like The Ankler that traditional media outlets have reason to be worried about whether YouTube’s going to gobble up 45% of ad revenue from everyone, including traditional broadcasters.
On the other, I can’t help but think that the buzz behind Backrooms and Obsession (and their massive box office hauls) echoes another period when Hollywood was worried about getting its lunch eaten.
In 1989, I turned 16 and immediately got a job as an usher at the closest movie theatre to my house. It was the easiest way to get to see a bunch of movies for free, but it also turned out to be the easiest way to get into a crowd of other people around my age who loved films as much as I did.
We mostly showed mainstream Hollywood fare, especially in our smallest screening room. It was specifically designed for studios to burn off terrible movies they were still contractually bound to show somewhere. We liked to joke that some of these movies were so bad, they somehow generated negative box office. To the point that, if you checked, you’d find the room somehow spawned more seats than it had earlier in the day.
And that goofy idea turned into an actual screenplay, that we attempted to shoot. Because my coworkers and I realized that if those terrible studio films could get made, there was hope for us. Once one of us got their hands on a camcorder, all bets were off.
We probably should have taken a few more screenwriting and lighting courses before we started shooting, but who could blame us? We were trading our free passes with the kids that worked at the art houses in the city. We got to see the emergence of independent and fringe filmmakers like The Hudlin Brothers, Hal Hartley, Pedro Almodóvar, Gus Van Sant, Rachel Talalay, and a dozen others. (That was just from 1989-1991, when I hung up my bow tie for good.)
Somewhere around the same time, Quentin Tarantino was stringing together enough acting and writing gigs to get the cash he’d use to make Reservoir Dogs. Kevin Smith was watching a Richard Linklater movie and realized he could probably do that too.
By the mid-1990s, the path to becoming a filmmaker wound through Sundance and dozens of regional film festivals, not necessarily through Hollywood. Those indie films may not have fully unseated the blockbuster, but they sure did shift the way that people learn about how to make film.
So I wonder, as David and Julia did on the show today, how much of YouTube experimentation will impact pop culture over the next 30 years. Probably, a lot! Right now, there’s a kid who just saw Kane Parsons debut a massive hit. They’re already thinking they know how to do even better.
And that’s great. It gives me so much hope. I’m gonna need that kid to make me interesting movies when I’m 83. (Because, among other reasons, I realized when I was 23 that I actually hate going on film shoots. I really thrive when I’m behind a keyboard full time.)
Creators have easier access to tools than ever before, and YouTube offers easy distribution and clear feedback from audiences about what’s working. Not everything there is people shouting into a lavalier microphone held too closely to their faces.
There’s serious work emerging there from people who don’t see the need to pitch to a studio executive.
