People are on their phone because the movie sucks
this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2026
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Here's a list of tons of leftist movies.
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Yea if the movie is gonna treat me like I'm not paying then I see no reason to pay attention
Oh boy another reboot of established IP! scrolls
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The number of clueless rubes in the Fallout TV series subreddit asking questions about things that were directly stated in the dialogue is too damned high.
I see this all the time online, some post that acts like they had some massive revelation about a movie and its just a basic part of the plot....and all the comments are like, wow i didnt notice that and ive seen this a hundred times.
"We are going to rob this casino blind"
"So we're robbing the casino"
"I reiterate the casino will be robbed"
"You guessed it, casino robbing time!"
Working retail, this is how you have to communicate with people now.
Like I have to answer the same question six times because people can comprehend basic things. I had to explain to this new cashier than when you ask a question over the intercom you have to pay attention to the response and do what the responder tells you to do, she seemed dumbfounded by this realization.
Well yeah, I counter my treatlerite indulgence (a TV show) by reading serious theory (browsing chapo dot chat) at the same time
Had to change my bookmarks cuz chacha stopped working 
I saw a director talking about this. She said they call it second screen content. Apparently they've done research that shows people are looking at their phones, lose the plot, and then shut it off.
I feel like the solution is movies that aren't shit and cause people to get bored enough to grab the phone. Making it repetitive seems like a way to guarantee people will stop paying attention in the first place.
Yeah they keep framing this as if the phones are the problem rather than the mediocre at best slop they keep producing. Half of my Netflix usage is something I put some very mildly interesting slop in the background while doing something else like eating lunch or cleaning. When the show/film is actually engaging I'm glued to the TV screen and forget about my phone.
film and television has been basically going through a story of distrusting audiences, and creatives fighting very hard to push for more trust in the audience, and as their gains peaked in their respective industries, visual media became quite good, as more trust was given to audiences to be able to handle complex ideas.
and now it's swinging back around. The audience is too dumb and inattentive to be trusted. I'm telling you, this "We need Ridiculous Shit Like Obsessively Restating The Plot, Because The Proles are Mouth Breathers With Completely Shot Attention Spans" is a decisive move towards narrowing the range of what long-form content can be, and while I consider pop culture generally an enemy of the people, this absolutely sucks for all kinds of reasons.
And next iteration they have to restate the plot Six to Eight times because netflix is moved from second to third screen.
"I have entered Jesse's house. Jesse and Jane are passed out from doing too much heroin. I will now try to wake Jesse. Jesse will not wake up. Jane is choking on vomit. I am watching Jane choke on vomit. I am crying. I am leaving Jesse's house."
typical Walt can't even be honest when he's narrating himself doing a murder
Imagined this in Shapiro's voice
Hm, well, ackshually, if we examine the facts and logic, it is plain to see -- and my doctor wife will agree -- that I am the one who, ackshually, knocks
Take a bullet for you, babe
Imagining this with Harrison Ford’s narration voice and an added part explaining that choking on vomit causes you to die so the audience understands why Walt is sad
Best we can do is Patrick Fabian.
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Ten years from now all movies will convey the plot like last week's episode of Jujutsu Kaisen (24 minutes of talking with diagrams explaining everything)
Standing in a white void taking a big fat exposition dump
Honestly, I complained that episode 1 and 2 felt like movie trailers rather than actual episodes due to the lack a lot of the exposition I expect from the start of a season. So I welcomed the polar opposite as a make-up for the previous two episodes. Also <3 diagrams
No this simply will not do, it must be narrated like Hunter x Hunter during the chimera ant arc. Bonus points if they help explain the properties of bungee gum.
Sorry, what'd he say? I was on my phone.
Listen here you little shit
People are only on their phones while watching Netflix because 99% of their content is slop
I never got this attitude, I’ll just pause whatever I’m watching if I need to check my phone for something. If something you’re watching is so dogshit you need to take out your phone just watch something better
What does Netflix want movies to do?
do like dragon ball Z on toonami and show every 20 minute segment twice in a row.
bring back exposition dumps yes i am media illiterate why do you ask?
edit: anyone else think very little of their target audience? no? just me?
it's okay I can just watch movies made before 2020 for the rest of my life
Maybe its because of the ads. Im gonna pull out my phone during and ad break and forget about whatever is on the screen when I get my netslop.
Oh damn, I forgot all those streaming services have ads now, and their "premium" version is just "less ads"
So what are we, some kind of Ocean's Eleven?
Can't they just trust that viewers will go to tvtropes for an explanation if they felt they missed something
We might actually be the dumbest generation of people
homer_simpson_so_far.tiff
Honestly must be a tough realization. You start working on movies when they are the highest acclaimed art form and now it's something people put on in the back while they scroll shorts.
This is an E1 bit
They're gonna do dogshit anime exposition dumps but in live action slop.
When I am watching my phone while a movie plays it is because either the plot or the action isn't engaging.
If the plot isn't engaging, then explaining it once more will only make it worse.
If the action isn't engaging then pausing it to explain the plot once more will only make it worse
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I just can't wait to get out of Africa.
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What I never understood about this:
If people are watching the current movies just fine, no matter if they comprehend them or not, why is this change necessary in their minds? They have to realize that not everyone is like this?
I guess it's just a case of capitalist innovation. Seeing a demo and giving it what it wants, as if movies are a new kind of pasta sauce.
The Rip 💨
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