• Rose Thorne(She/Her)@lemm.ee
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      14 days ago

      I’m honestly not sure, I think it’s actually been tried at this point. There’s novelty there, at first, but it has to get boring after awhile. Most people just aren’t that interesting, when you get down to it. Not on a constant 24/7 level.

      • driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br
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        14 days ago

        A guy in Japan already try it, with an hotel that was 24/7 streaming everyone even inside the rooms. The streaming revenue was not enough to keep it ans it had to revert to being a normal hotel.

  • Tippon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    14 days ago

    The first few seasons of Big Brother UK had nighttime episodes where you could watch the contestants sleeping. They were very popular, and even had catch up shows so you could see what you’d missed 🤷🏻‍♂️

  • Itdidnttrickledown@lemmy.world
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    13 days ago

    I went to work for a cable company in 2007. This old timer there told me about his cable TV dog turd theory. His theory said that you could put a camera on a dog turd in your yard and leave it on for a month. When you switched it off there would be hundreds of calls about why this channel was off. There would complaint after complaint that there was a fly that was about to land on the dog turd and they missed it.

  • Pennomi@lemmy.world
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    14 days ago

    I think the point was that there were also paid actors intentionally stirring up drama around him.

    • Honytawk@lemmy.zip
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      14 days ago

      Like, how much drama can they pull around a baby?

      Especially if it is 24/7 for multiple years.

      • Chefdano3@lemm.ee
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        14 days ago

        Have you ever raised a baby? They’re 90% drama, 10% sleep. Guaranteed the early days of the Truman Show were flooded with parents watching the actor mom struggle to deal with the constant crying. Crying because hungry, refusing to eat because they’re too busy crying, crying because they’re tired, but too busy crying to sleep. I bet tons of parents were watching it, commiserating, or judging, or arguing about how she should be doing this instead of that. The drama writes itself.

        Not to mention the moments when they’re being extremely cute. When they roll over in bed and stare wide eyed at a stuffed toy, then flail at it and coo little baby noises at it. Maybe bite on it and shake it around like a little puppy. People love that shit. If a live stream of a fixed camera in a car cafe can get millions of views, a live stream of a baby doing baby things can easily get lots of viewers.

  • Luke@lemmy.ml
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    14 days ago

    Have you (rhetorical you) seen the ridiculously boring and shallow shit that people watch nearly 24/7 now, though? Video platforms are filled with useless nonsense and people eat it up.

    There are people who will have a show playing in the background every hour of the day, showing the “news” or soap operas or reality shows or game shows or movie reruns or etc etc, just soaking it up subconsciously forever until they die.

    Go to any doctors office or bar or restaurant (in the US, anyway, maybe it’s different elsewhere) and there’s a high chance they’ll also be playing some nonsense drivel on a dozen TVs strategically positioned so you can’t sit anywhere in the place without being subjected to a view of one.

    Society loves giving attention to the most inane shit available, even if just for background noise.

    The idea of there being an audience for the early years of the Truman Show doesn’t seem at all like an unfathomable stretch to me.

    • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.world
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      14 days ago

      Reaction videos are a popular format right now. People watch other people watch dumb TV. The Truman Show seems damned near brilliant compared to that.

      • The Snark Urge@lemmy.world
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        14 days ago

        I really hate that. I hate the idea that society has given up on making good TV. A good TV show is like a crack rock. It’s all promethazine and 7Up now

          • The Snark Urge@lemmy.world
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            13 days ago

            We agree on that score. That’s the tricky thing about shows that are genuinely that good, you finish them fast. I actually don’t mind when they release them once per week. Delicious in Dungeon looms larger in my memory than Blue Eyes Samurai, even though I liked BES a bit more.