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by atleastoptimal 22 days ago
All they had to do was simply hire a talented person who knows how to make compelling narrative art. This is lost on the movie industry, though Hollywood has been treading water for over a decade now, failing to examine its failures and coasting on inertia.

In general, there is sooo much free money on the ground for large, hierarchical American corporations to do the following

1. Give young talented people resources and freedom

2. Don't put them through endless bullshit internal status games

The reason why the tech industry in the US thrives so much is partially due to the fact that it is one of the few industries that gives people high salaries and agency in their roles without a huge amount of experience.

Almost everywhere else is just an artifically gated series of internal politics, nepotism and pointless rituals in too-big-to-fail industries, which attract people who prefer these games over actual results.

5 comments

I saw a Youtuber recently make a compelling argument that one of the features Hollywood has been missing is the pipeline of young, imaginative talent that music video direction used to provide. Backrooms, Iron Lung, etc. make a good case that YouTube can be that new pipeline.
My first thought is that it would be the very successful YouTubers that get approached by hollywood. And those people are already doing well for themselves independently and would most likely not want to move to the corporate culture without creative control.
The Backrooms kid got to spend three years working on a project he was clearly passionate about. He wasn't chasing clicks, creating daily content to keep the algorithm happy or worrying about ever mysterious ebb and flow of Google's payouts. He had an agent and manager that got him a deal and probably points on profit and who will make sure he gets paid. Sounds like a pretty sweet deal to me.
That's the exactly the role talent scouts fill - spot the ones that show glimmers of promise before it's obvious, and offer them opportunity.
This story at Deadline really does a good job of outlining the strategy for the film. https://deadline.com/2026/05/backrooms-kane-parsons-box-offi...
Hollywood is looking for a slightly different skill set than what YouTubers do, but what they do want is that relationship with an audience. Filmmaking chops can be taught and nurtured, but that trust that some of these creators have earned is gold to them.
I suppose if The Daniels were the last directors to enjoy the music video > Hollywood path then Neil Blomkamp might be the proto-example of Internet content > Hollywood.
If anything I feel like the last decade has been the decade of individual contributors losing all agency in tech.
I think that holds true for any industry where the consequences of failure are no more than loss of money.
You idealize young people. There's talented people of all ages. I just want talented people to get money...in general.
I single out young people because they tend to be significantly undervalued with respect to their ability to contribute, especially in many industries which heavily gate on experience and connections.
People who dont live in San Francisco or New York are significantly undervalued with respect to their talent and ability to contribute in the tech industry. Same with women and black people.

Give talented people money period.

Backrooms is Marvel for 4chaners and other very online people, let's be honest.