2 ms·

The long tail has never been stronger, the paradox is the head has also never been stronger in terms of attracting advertising dollars + cultural head space BEC

The long tail has never been stronger, the paradox is the head has also never been stronger in terms of attracting advertising dollars + cultural head space BECAUSE the long tail has never been stronger. Basically NFL/NBA and Disney properties are the only things with massive cultural foot prints anymore, and are more valuable for that reason (see: the movie investment portion of the piece). So many conversations now with my friends about pop culture and we'll mention TV shows, music, games, books, or movies we're consuming, and none of us have even heard of what we're talking about. That wasn't the case 20 years ago and cultural fragmentation will just continue. The author is basically lamenting how long tail properties used to have larger cultural footprints in part because there were so few of them. So the long tail has never been larger or more important, but each individual member of the long tail is growing weaker as the tail is growing in size.

mumblemumble 4y ago
If we agree that aggregators of the long tail are getting stronger, then I'd argue that the long tail is also getting stronger. But the medium tail might be having a hard time of it. Take the trajectory of my video consumption. I've never been super big on mainstream culture, for whatever reason. So, with some notable examples, I tend not to consume much in the way of blockbuster movies or prime time TV. 25 years ago, what that meant was that I was watching David Lynch movies and the like. Nowadays, no studios are funding that kind of work. But I've also moved further out on the tail. I'm not even sure the tail went this far back when the term "long tail" was coined. My favorite film I've seen so far this year was a documentary that I don't think would ever have made it on to the distribution networks that existed in the late 1990s. (Maybe a film festival I couldn't have afforded to attend.) But I was able to find it on Apple TV. And we can go even further out if we look at YouTube and Vimeo. I don't know that something like Motorsport Gigantoraptor or Супер Сус would have even been possible a quarter century ago.
lucas_membrane 4y ago
Disney -- They acquired the rights to Rocky and Bullwinkle (and Betty Boop, too, IIRC) simply to eliminate competition from the long tail.

mumblemumble 4y ago

If we agree that aggregators of the long tail are getting stronger, then I'd argue that the long tail is also getting stronger. But the medium tail might be having a hard time of it. Take the trajectory of my video consumption. I've never been super big on mainstream culture, for whatever reason. So, with some notable examples, I tend not to consume much in the way of blockbuster movies or prime time TV. 25 years ago, what that meant was that I was watching David Lynch movies and the like. Nowadays, no studios are funding that kind of work. But I've also moved further out on the tail. I'm not even sure the tail went this far back when the term "long tail" was coined. My favorite film I've seen so far this year was a documentary that I don't think would ever have made it on to the distribution networks that existed in the late 1990s. (Maybe a film festival I couldn't have afforded to attend.) But I was able to find it on Apple TV. And we can go even further out if we look at YouTube and Vimeo. I don't know that something like Motorsport Gigantoraptor or Супер Сус would have even been possible a quarter century ago.

lucas_membrane 4y ago

Disney -- They acquired the rights to Rocky and Bullwinkle (and Betty Boop, too, IIRC) simply to eliminate competition from the long tail.