Star Wars, Marvel, Hype Culture And Why I Don't Want Any Part Of It [RE-EDIT]

This was written for the University subject, BCM110.

Shown above: the video that partially inspired this post. 

Warning: may contain a bit of swearing, if you don't like that sort of thing.

Let me set the scene for you.

I’m sitting in my bedroom, minding my own business, browsing Reddit or what have you, when my brother bursts in - asking me if I’ve seen the new ‘Star Wars’ trailer yet. I reply with something that sounds tired, bored, and along the lines of ‘No…I haven’t’. You see, I’m not someone to keep up with release cycles or the next teaser trailer to follow the last two teaser trailers to tease something the first two have not! Exciting, no? “Oh goodness, I can’t wait to see another teaser. I enjoyed the last two so much!” If I were teased like this by someone in real life, I doubt I’d keep my cool for long.

But I digress.

Teasers for teasers now appears to be the norm. Alongside that, it seems that in today’s world, if something big is happening, then your brain must be focused on absolutely nothing else. Not only that, but you’re constantly bombarded from all sides and/or directions about how good a thing is. “Believe the hype!”, headlines scream, “Best [blank] I’ve seen in my entire life!”, shout the message boards. Believe the hype? Why? Why must I ‘believe’ anything?

The modern media audience is also completely and utterly infatuated with cinematic universes and superheroes, ‘a force…that has pushed mainstream cinema almost entirely into the fantasy franchise zone’ (Dixon, 2018).

Let me give you two possible outcomes or cycles of hype: the first is the downward spiral into hatred. This is what a typical ‘bad’ cycle looks like:

1. Thing gets announced

2. People get excited

3. More things about the thing are announced

4. People get more excited

5. People tell their friends about the new thing and act as pseudo-advertisers

6. More hype

7. Thing gets released

8. The thing’s actually crap

9. People hate it even more then they might have done due to hype intensifying their expectations

10. Repeat Steps 1-9 with something else that also ends up being crap

The second is the perpetual hype machine. It’s the same as the first except instead of being crap, the thing is good and as a result, people get more excited about the next thing that comes from the first thing.

Being someone who watches this culture from the outside looking in, I don’t completely understand why anyone actively involves themselves in this process - either your expectations as an audience member are dashed to pieces or they’re constantly heightened to the point where nothing can ever compare with the image of this possible thing inside your head. Besides, let’s not forget that this is an industry. After all, according to Reddy, Kasat and Jain (2012), hype is ‘a factor which drives a layman to a theatre to watch a movie’ and they also suggest data-mining as ‘a novel way to mine and analyze the opinions expressed in…tweets with respect to a movie prior to its release [and] estimate the hype surrounding it’.

And yes: for many people, it’s fine. They’re being entertained, who cares about that stuff? But I just don’t see the appeal.

Pop culture and its good friend, hype culture, have become the best of buddies in the past decade or two, and good for them…good for them. But as the title suggests…

I don’t want any part of it.

“But to answer your question, Alexander, no. I have not seen the newest Star Wars trailer. But I’m sure you’re more than willing to explain it to me and why you loved it, even if it goes in one ear and out the other.”

REFERENCES:

Dixon, WW 2018, ‘Synthetic Cinema: Mainstream Movies in the 21st Century’, Quarterly Review of Film and Video, vol. 35, no. 1, p. 4

Reddy, ASS, Kasat, P & Jain, A 2012, ‘Box-Office Opening Prediction of Movies based on Hype Analysis through Data Mining’, International Journal of Computer Applications, vol. 56, no. 1, p. 1