to the buffet!
Quibi & Netflix's sweaty heaps
Content Bingers,
Quibi died on impact, but in a way, it's still alive in me, because it inspired this sentence, which I think about a lot:
Obviously all of my posts about how it feels for me to watch & work during the rise of the stream could be better expressed by: "This shit is like a MANIC BUFFET."
Occasionally I try writing not just about my feelings but also about The Business. And yesterday, a guy, who I see quoted in Deadline a lot, said everything I've ever tried to say about The Business in one sentence:
Are these people geniuses (yes)... or am I just drawn, yet again, by the lure of the buffet? (obviously yes too.)
This second quote is not about eating at a buffet or, following the metaphor, being a viewer of the streamers. It's about running the joint -- the buffet or the streamer. And the more I think about what it'd be like to run a buffet, the more I like it as a metaphor for running a streamer -- and in turn, an explanation of why streamers make so much garbage & seem generally bad for the health of the business, let alone the arts. Allow me to explore the metaphor...
So you're a guy running a buffet…
You're making vast quantities of food. You're just plopping it into trays, one after another, all day & all night (a la Netflix's 80 movies a year etc. etc.). The customers aren't paying by the dish, like at an a la carte restaurant (buying a movie ticket). They're paying just to be in there & consume whatever you've got (subscription model). There's an understanding with the customer that this isn't going to be stellar, but that they'll get to indulge. They get ribs and mac & cheese that are satisfying & bottomless. Yours is a place where they can gorge & where it's already loud enough that they can let their kids go buck wild (Big Tech streaming hasn't exactly fostered a PBS...). You can't believe how much people consume. You keep an eye on what they like most (data!), and you damn well make a lot of it, but really, you know they aren't coming for anything in particular. They're there for the vastness of what they could have.
Your restaurant happens to be in the right place at the right time: a tourist town at Christmas (pandemic) at a busy intersection where all the roads inevitably lead (cord-cutting, theaters closing etc.).
Running your restaurant is not a game of perfect. Your beef can be weird. So can your pasta. (Flops don't matter.) The diners can fill up a whole plate with those, take one bite, and bail (A viewer watching only four minutes of a movie and quitting is not only OK, it counts as a view!). You just have to have something else they like... and you're probably not going to fuck up the ribs or the mac & cheese. (For me that's Selling Sunset.) Of course it goes without saying that you just can't think about making the food, you know, healthy. Sure, you need a salad bar, because some customers like that sort of thing, but that's as easy as a bag of lettuce & a big bowl of Italian dressing (Just give Scorsese $200M+). And the things you have to do to make the rest of the food delish at that price & quantity? You know there's so bad shit in there. But it's best not to dwell. (...on 13 Reasons dovetailing with a rash of teen suicides.) Your job is hard enough. And this is your season to cash in, or so says the bank who gave you a yuge loan & watches you like a hawk (Wall Street). It's one thing to be busy, but you've gotta pull in everybody off the beach to hit your projections.
And once they're in? You better keep those trays full. Because you can never, ever run out.
Wouldn't it be a shame if the only restaurants left were buffets?
Hollywood Forever Y'all,
Max
P.S. I do love an Indian lunch buffet. Pre-quar I recommended India's Restaurant in Silverlake. Apparently they've still got the buffet going, and I can confirm the takeout remains excellent. Enjoy.
P.P.S. The writer of “manic buffet,” Steven Horst Phillips, also goes by cancela lansbury & is extremely funny.