have opened the floodgates to a new and dystopian battle between art and commerce, burying films and TV shows—preventing them from seeing the light of day, sometimes before they’ve ever aired at all—in order to claim the losses for tax purposes. It’s bleak, a come-to-Jesus moment for many viewers losing the media they love and for many creatives wondering what kinds of bastards they’re leaving in charge of their art.
It’s a cheeky, self-effacing gimmick nodding towards the way that so many video clerks, movie theater employees and late-night lobby lingerers relate to the world around them. Folks that can’t go two sentences without saying an event or a reaction or an idea is “just like that movie where…” I run into this all the time. Occupational hazard. Seeing it built into’s aesthetic offered the worst kind of déjà vu.