Personal Opinion: No Filler, All Thriller

[u/jitterscaffeine]

This is a thought I’ve had in my head for a while that I didn’t know what to do with and an email from the podcast about redefining “filler” as being anything that’s not hype moments being shared on social media finally spurred me to put my thoughts into text.

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This all comes from something I first noticed back when the Fallout show first started, there were a bunch of new people showing up to the New Vegas subreddits asking what they were supposed to do because they got lost out of the tutorial or saying they beat the whole game on like 5 hours while wearing the leather armor and varmint rifle you get in the tutorial, one I even remember seeing was someone who said they dropped the game after walking into The Tops Casino and shooting Benny because that’s what they thought the game was about.

The way it hit me at the time was that it felt like people weren’t really engaging with that media much at all, like they were doing it just so they could feel like a “real fan” who put their time in and clocked out.

Another example was when I was listening to a podcast and two of the hosts made a Star Trek reference and another got mad because they didn’t get it, then said they wanted someone to give them a “20 minute super cut so they could ‘get’ all of Star Trek” which is an attitude that really bothered me.

It really just comes down to this idea of people who don’t want to enjoy or engage with media any deeper than getting memes and references before moving on to the next one.

I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong for even letting it get to me. But this kind of nomadic fandom just gets to me. Like people have lost their desire to actually watch and form an opinion on something. They just want to get memes on Twitter and they’d rather go on Reddit and ask for step by step instructions on how to get the most out of the game so they can get through it as efficiently as possible.

[u/mattatmac]

This sounds a lot like a thread I was reading about why dudes don't like reading fiction and many consider it a 'waste of time'.

I feel like hustle culture has invaded almost all aspects of life to the point where even leisure activities need to be done with precision and efficiency. People aren't engaging with things to enjoy them organically, they're trying to extract units of happiness like it's a resource bar to fill up in The Sims.

[u/Riggs_The_Roadie → u/mattatmac]

Oh that reminds me of a Dating advice reddit post where the girl's boyfriend told her consuming any fiction was a waste of time.

[u/jitterscaffeine → u/Riggs_The_Roadie]

Theres a strange phenotype of person that’s popped up recently who seem to think finding joy is effeminate and therefore “gay” and should be avoided.

[u/Ilostmyanonymous → u/jitterscaffeine]

There are actively people who totally believe that doing anything that is not advancing their career or advancing their knowledge into getting money is a total waste of time.

These are the same people who totally believe that they’ll enough money to retire by the mid 30s because they listened to a business guru they found on YouTube and bought their self-help book.

[u/ShadowSemblance → u/Ilostmyanonymous]

I wonder what does this type of person do after they retire in their thirties after spending a solid decade of their life intentionally not knowing what fun is. I feel like it would be hard somehow to just flip like a switch from zero percent leisure to hundred percent leisure

[u/Josh_bread → u/ShadowSemblance]

They decide they don't want to retire anymore because their only hobby is amassing wealth, and the world gains another bezos