> An essay that told people things they already knew would be boring. You have to tell them something new.
I think there's something off about this statement: A lot of people enjoy watching a new marvel movie once or twice a year while the movies themselves are more or less reiterations of the previous ones. People seem to enjoy the repetition.
The same seems to be true for essays: People enjoy finding their own thoughts repeated by anothers voice.
For example, there are a lot of essays analyzing/explaining/stating/claiming the importance of book X, videogame Y or composer Z; Art movement A, theory B or profession C. But do they provide anything new besides the comfort of nostalgia for shared experiences? However stale the enjoyment of these essays seems when viewed through the lens of the cited statement, the enjoyment itself can not be denied.
> A lot of people enjoy watching a new marvel movie once or twice a year while the movies themselves are more or less reiterations of the previous ones. People seem to enjoy the repetition.
The success of the Marvel movies is obvious in retrospect, but nothing like them had ever been done before.
Thor, Iron Man and Captain America were not considered among the popular Marvel Characters. Spider Man, X-Men and Fantastic Four had already been licensed by other companies, but no one cared to do the same with what became the foundation characters of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Having a cinematic universe where major characters had their own movies, plus movies where they banded together, was common in comics, but never on the big screen.
Keeping the characterizations largely true to the comics, when many directors had wanted to make them more "sophisticated" or "adult", also displays independent minded thinking.
Would anyone have predicted a sci-fi romp with a talking squirrel and walking tree the general public had no familiarity with would be a massive success?
Making Thanos the protagonist of the "Hero's Journey" in the climax of the whole series I think was a bold decision.
There are many other ways these movies were bold and creative and, yes, independent minded, leading to success that would have been impossible with conventional thinking.
> A lot of people enjoy watching a new marvel movie once or twice a year while the movies themselves are more or less reiterations of the previous ones. People seem to enjoy the repetition.
Honestly, I would argue against this. While they tend to do simplistic plotlines that are similar to the previous, they're very visibly different and so do not trigger any of the usual "I already watched this." that I get from watching sitcoms.
Though, I do agree that people at times read essays because they reiterate your thoughts back to you, but as you say I'd agree that its more comfort/shared-experiences than the content that they've already seen (ex: reaction videos). At times, I've done this because I know an article will be able to provide an alternative view on the topic to further fuel my own reasoning, or simply helping to ground my reasoning more into words.
But, I do think an essay that is obviously what I already know would be boring. If I had to read an article about basic programming techniques, I'd be likely bored, due to having seen it all before.
I think there's something off about this statement: A lot of people enjoy watching a new marvel movie once or twice a year while the movies themselves are more or less reiterations of the previous ones. People seem to enjoy the repetition.
The same seems to be true for essays: People enjoy finding their own thoughts repeated by anothers voice.
For example, there are a lot of essays analyzing/explaining/stating/claiming the importance of book X, videogame Y or composer Z; Art movement A, theory B or profession C. But do they provide anything new besides the comfort of nostalgia for shared experiences? However stale the enjoyment of these essays seems when viewed through the lens of the cited statement, the enjoyment itself can not be denied.