Overrated / Underrated: 2017 was the worst — or was it?
UNDERRATED
The coming digital crash: For all the misguided “pivots to video” in media this year, there’s a very real possibility that the internet may not be the limitless, life-enhancing cabinet of curiosities it once was. Sales of e-readers are down while vinyl and record player purchases continue to rise, the rising influence of social media keeps making us more anti-social and for all the emphasis on streaming media, efforts to end net neutrality could transform a fast network connection into a luxury item. The good news? Physical copies of books, movies and music remain a renewable resource — and you only buy them once.
2017: With its fires, floods, mass shootings and a return of global nuclear war into the rotation of waking nightmares, this year was so chaotic it was easy to lose track of the good things that happened despite all the crumbling chaos surrounding them. To name a few, “Get Out” and “Lady Bird” have real chances of being best picture contenders, Kendrick Lamar and Mavis Staples are making records while you are alive, and “The Deuce” or a bonkers “Twin Peaks” revival are just two dispatches from “Peak TV” that can distract you from current events. Great art can’t fix everything, but it sure helps sometimes.
FULL COVERAGE: Year-end entertainment 2018 »
OVERRATED
2017: With its fires, floods, mass shootings and a return of global nuclear war into the rotation of waking nightmares, this year felt twice as long and more like something to be endured than enjoyed — like, say, a “Transformers” movie. After a year colored by so much darkness all of those “worst year ever” takes that arrived to close out 2016 now seem laughably short on imagination, we can take comfort in knowing the year is basically over and we can start looking forward to what comes next. Like, say, the new “Transformers” movie. (Are there really 14 more of these in development? Hang in there, everyone.)
Fandom: As the tidal wave of sexual misconduct allegations in Hollywood, Capitol Hill and beyond looks sure to extend into 2018, one factor keeps popping up alongside the very real tendency for culture to doubt women: the act of loving someone’s work so much that it becomes inconvenient to believe they’re capable of bad behavior. Going forward, we’ll be a lot better off if we accept that a person’s art, words or public persona is all we truly know about them, and anyone’s capacity to create sounds, stories or policy that resonates has no impact on their capacity to also do something reprehensible.
Follow me over here @chrisbarton.
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