Am I wrong…

We keep talking about parallel economies and alternatives, but I don’t think most people actually want one. I think they want the mega corporations to change. Those are two completely different things, and the gap between them is why we’re stuck in this loop.

The cycle goes like this. A legacy studio puts something out. Commentators respond, point out the positives and the negatives, and hope it moves the needle. The feedback never gets digested the way a consumer would digest it. They put the next thing out. Repeat. That’s been the last decade, and it’s why the approach hasn’t changed.

Here’s the part people skip. We are not in an era of discovery, at least not in the West. Some of you watching do go out and find new things, but on average people don’t operate that way. They go to what’s accessible, what looks ambitious, and what carries a name they already recognize. Even when something new does break through, it’s usually published or funded by a corporation with massive capital anyway. That’s part of the loop too.

And the corporations know it. They’re not stupid. No matter how many duds they lay, the recognition carries them. Star Wars is the easy example. People say it’s dead and over with, and the franchise keeps putting things out and finding moments where the conversation turns positive again.

So being an alternative is a chicken and egg problem. To command that level of attention you need capital, and to get the capital you have to command the attention. That’s why even the mega corporations don’t gamble much on new properties. Look at the top films in any given year and it’s mostly sequels and rehashes of IP that’s been around for decades. People gripe about it, but the numbers say that’s what gets the time of day. Can you really blame them for doing what works?

I’ll say this about my own business. We’re an outlier. Being able to command the attention we have is not representative of the comic industry, and anybody who pulls it off is a breakthrough, not a template.

What I think is actually true is that most people don’t want Disney gone or replaced. They want Disney to be better. That’s a very different ask, and it’s a long way from where we used to be when the West was genuinely more innovative.

Tell me if you think I’m wrong on this one.

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#Disney #Hollywood #Entertainment #Comics