Sub Pop Culture 🇺🇸🐿️

Welcome to Buffalonickel Films Inc.

@Eden_Eats You are misresding the business. Barbie was huge because of a multi generational pre existing global fanbase. Backrooms also had a pre existing fanbase.

They always learn the wrong lessons. Like when Barbie made over a million dollars instead of hiring more female writer/directors, they were like “let’s make a SLINKY movie!”

AI is unleashing entire populations to self-determine without permission, including those far from power.

When you see an article like this, it means it already happened,

Civilizations are not preserved the way corporations are preserved. A corporation can survive by protecting existing assets. A civilization survives by renewing itself.

A country that produces millions of builders is attractive. A country that primarily protects incumbents eventually becomes less attractive. Which way, America?

People react more strongly when a discussion moves from personalities to incentives.

@writeadambloom You’re not reading this right. That’s ok. You will learn.

@WriterMcG Guy who is insanely jealous of the success of others. Especially if he's middle aged and they are young.

Curry Barker and Kane Parsons in like 5 years. I would say 10 but the speed of the scale and then the destruction will keep shrinking.

@WriterMcG Exactly. I posted about the same subject with a slightly different perspective with a review of Obsession yesterday. Nice to read something like that here.

@slopcolonizer @glennbeck "Politics is show business for ugly people." is how I know it, but I also added "Show business is politics for mean people." in the current era we just came through.

@WriterMcG @glennbeck Totally agree. What’s that saying? DC is Hollywood for ugly ppl

@glennbeck went into the Hollywood conservative political groups years ago pretending he was going to produce entertainment but that never happened. Then the Daily Wire was like “we’re taking on Disney” and that was the punchline. These people are just full of crap. It’s cringe because deep down they are not artists. They are boring news pundits who became mini cable news celebrities and see the world as black and white, complaining about the other side that can in fact create art. And then there’s Hollywood itself. A corporate behemoth that balkanized the domestic audience to serve China but China has the world’s biggest middle class audience and they don’t need anything from the studio schmucks who basically screwed themselves. Now novelty and novelty only is what they can sell. Real and meaningful culture is just sitting there waiting for enough people to stop being mesmerized by glamour.

You nailed it. They would not be in political narrative at all if they had made it art or show biz first, but when that never happened the side stage became punditry and pundits as cable news celebrities. Nobody dreams of being a pundit. Hell, even Donald Trump wanted to produce movies and has said so. I think at the root is just a desire to be famous. Its a human desire many of us have, but its the main desire clearly of this subset.

@WriterMcG @glennbeck Def bitter when calling their rivals theater kids. Maybe it derives from lack of talent? I cringe-“weren’t you an actor, you a writer, you a musician, you a comedian? You’re all theater kids” I wonder if they’d be as politically active if they made it in LA

Hollywood has a long history of celebrating outsider filmmakers at the exact moment those filmmakers become useful to the system. The applause can feel like victory. The meetings, the articles, the glamour, the idea that you are now the new face of Hollywood — all of that can feel like arrival. But it is also the beginning of containment. The deeper question is not whether a low-budget movie can make a lot of money. We already know that can happen. The Blair Witch Project proved it decades ago. The more important question is whether the creators who prove the new model retain the power created by that proof. Because historically, that is where the story gets dark. The filmmakers behind The Blair Witch Project demonstrated something extraordinary. They gave the industry a new grammar, a new marketing model, a new kind of audience relationship, and one of the most profitable independent films ever made. But the model survived them more than it empowered them. Hollywood learned the lesson. The filmmakers did not become the lasting power center of that lesson. That is what I worry about now with the current generation of YouTube-native filmmakers — the Curry Barkers, the Kane Parsons, and others like them eager to sell their futures away in exchange for fleeting fame. These young creators are arriving with something Hollywood desperately needs: proof of audience, proof of concept, cultural heat, and a movie or property made at a fraction of the cost of the studio system. In many cases, they are gladly handing over an incredibly inexpensive gift. They take on the creative risk, they build the relationship with the audience, they prove the hook works, and then the dealmakers arrive to convert that proof into institutional value. Hollywood is full of people who do not do the storytelling. They do the deal-making. That is their expertise. They understand acquisition, leverage, contracts, rights, sequel control, backend definitions, publicity framing, career management, and the cultural machinery that turns a creator into a symbol while separating that creator from the underlying power. The young filmmaker’s expertise is the story. The system’s expertise is the deal. That is not a fair fight unless the creator understands what kind of room he is really in. So when people call Obsession disruptive, I am not convinced. A low-budget movie making a fortune is not automatically disruption. It may simply be Hollywood’s preferred survival mode in a weakened theatrical market. Let the outsider take the risk. Let the audience validate the property. Let the internet do the early marketing. Then acquire the heat, package the filmmaker, absorb the lesson, and look for the next kid who can do something similar. That is not disruption. That is risk outsourcing. Real disruption would mean the creator retains ownership, leverage, audience relationship, and long-term control. Real disruption would mean studios become service providers to creator-owned worlds, not permanent owners of them. Real disruption would mean the filmmaker does not get traded glamour in exchange for power. That is the heart of my wisdom. I am not rooting against these filmmakers. I am warning them. The danger is not failure. The danger is being used as evidence of a new future while the old power structure remains fully intact. Hollywood can survive a young filmmaker having a hit. What it does not want is a generation of young filmmakers realizing that the hit does not have to be surrendered.

Any conservative waiting for that free money from conservative businessmen needs to give that up yesterday. Conservative execs have terrible taste. That’s why they make millions in almond futures and not in the arts. Artists need to go full indie, full guerilla film making which is the same advice I’d give to any filmmaker. It doesn’t have to cost a lot to tell a story. If you’re a noob and telling $399 million stories you need to check yourself. Film Threat and the 90s indies had it right to jump make it. That’s how you got Evil Dead, Clerks and El Mariachi. It’s been done by bigger men who cared more about making something than playing victim. The universe doesn’t owe you a budget so now what? If you quit you never had it.

@NeverMindDeez @MOVIETVWRITERX Yeah and nobody will rush out to see it nimrod. One and done.

@WriterMcG @MOVIETVWRITERX He's literally doing another original movie with Aaron Paul and Bryce Dallas Howard called "Anything But Ghosts", you fucking tool.

What a complete predictable tool this guy is. No backbone, no lasting talent, just a one-off and then an instant remake with some PR excuse about how “But I want to do it right” Nobody wants this but the suits who can get paid making it because they collect fees green lighting a safe and already known IP — essentially a coloring book they own, but they let him use crayons to color inside the lines. Hollywood is completely devoid of new ideas and cannot afford them. Curry Barker is already finished as an artist and is just a spokesperson for corporate showbiz now. He clearly believes his own myth too. Believing one’s own myth is what ends them and what keeps the non creatives in charge and taking all the loot. PR will make it look like he’s winning but really he’s just been destroyed long term. The first Gen Z to he captured by the system. What a dumb sucker.

@deadsummer Oh ok.

@WriterMcG Ok. Again, he would hate this on so many levels even if you were to compare him to Walt Disney

Hayao Miyazaki is the Japanese Walt Disney. But now we need a dozen AI powered American Miyazakis. Full circle cultural renewal.

@deadsummer No I don’t. He may dislike AI but I am not suggesting people steal from him. He is an example of what happens when one does not sell out and instead remains independent and in control. Just like Walt Disney.

@WriterMcG you know Miyazaki would hate this

Midjourney will be announcing its first hardware project tomorrow (Wednesday 6/17) at 6pm PT. Stay tuned for a livestream of our in-person launch event in San Francisco. If you're in town and want an invite, reply below, we have just a few slots left.

@JimBondProds It’s not a business. It’s a service.

@WriterMcG Horrific time to start a business like this

I’m launching StoryForge soon, and it is not a compliment machine. Bring it your story, your script, your AI film, your world, your character, your scene. But first it will help you find your intent. Why are you making this? Because you can? Because the genre is hot? Because you want the industry to pick you? Because you have something real to say? You may not like the answer. That’s the point. Authorship begins when the creator knows what sword they’re actually holding. Some people are making product. Fine. There is honor in honest product. But culture is not restored by product pretending to be art. Culture is restored by original voices with clear intent, protected authorship, and the nerve to build outside the machine. StoryForge is for the creator who wants the truth before the marketplace, the algorithm, or the studio system gets to the work. Find the signal. Forge the intent. Protect the author.

It’s almost as if the peoples arrive with a specific and unique culture, but the American culture that once was is not there to receive and change them. So how about a large buttered popcorn and a remake? Yeah, that’ll do it!