A New York University professor calls it the “paradox of abundance.” I call it the Memoirs of a Geisha effect. It’s the phenomenon, documented in today’s Wall Street Journal, of ordering movies that you were never dying to watch from Netflix and then letting the DVDs sit there in their little red envelopes for weeks on end while you find new excuses not to play them. Finally, slightly ashamed of yourself, you seal them back up and return them to Netflix, unwatched. It’s happened to me many times, twice with Memoirs of a Geisha.
I think it may also make for a small but worthy footnote to Chris Anderson’s Long Tail book. How many long tail offerings do we order (because it’s so freaking easy) and then never end up reading or watching or listening to? My guess is that it might be a fairly high percentage. Among other things, the long tail gives us the illusion that our tastes are more catholic than they actually are. Which explains that small sense of shame that springs up every time we return a DVD unwatched: It’s an admission of failure, a confession that our cultural orbit is a bit more circumscribed than we had imagined it.
Long Tail explains why we send those videos back without watching them, but it isn’t because we’re really sheep at heart. Quite the opposite. Some videos never get watched, even though they garnered some interest, because we had other videos that were even more interesting. The abundance of options in our wired world has made our time more efficient and consequently, our contributions more pertinent.
Some videos never get watched, even though they garnered some interest, because we had other videos that were even more interesting.
Baloney.
Ah, Nick-
Your tastes will seem even more mainstream when you look down the rabbit hole of the thread into the Long Tail of the the story of 1990’s renaissance of low-powered tube amplifier-artistry at the NYC salon, Fi (on 30 Watts St).
Here’s the description of my amp. Herb designed it with passion. Among other notable things, it uses the Western Electric 300B tube which powered theater systems in the 1930’s.
It’s true. Handmade tube amps & vinyl are a completely different world to your NAD or Marantz reciever — or, GAAAAAK! — your iPod w/ JBL speakers. Horses for courses, of course.
But the Long Tail was around even before the Internet. You’d find it in small studios behind the grocers’ off Ludlow, Delancy or Norfolk Street or in Osaka or in Amsterdam. Or at the quilting sessions in deepest Mississippi.
Hand-made, one-of a kind things. They’re special.
Here’s the link about the Fi salon (which I neglected to add to my comment, above.)
Of course, Netflix benefits from delays in returning DVDs, as it lowers their shipping costs. I have heard that they are well aware of the tendency described in the article, and thus push highly touted (but little watched) DVDs (e.g. The Seventh Seal, my personal Netflix albatross) to subscribers, hoping they will keep them for a long time under the theory that they “should” watch them at some point. I’ve also been too lazy to return the discs, paying Netflix month after month for watching no DVDs.
A rather brilliant marketing strategy actually, capitalizing on people’s overestimation of their cultural tastes and diligence.
Some videos never get watched, even though they garnered some interest, because we had other videos that were even more interesting.
Baloney.
No, it’s not baloney, because I do that! I belong to Netflix, and watch LOTS of movies. My tastes are eclectic, and because I generally watch them with other family members, I’ll usually choose to watch what I feel may appeal most to them first, putting off viewing the foreign and non-mainstream movies, even though those are often some of my favorites. Many times a few weeks pass before I view them all, and sometimes I end up sending movies back unwatched. It has nothing to do with ordering movies I think I should watch based on someone else’s opinion.
I signed up for Napster to Go the moment it was available. A blues fan, I immediately downloaded about 1,000 old blues tunes, including some songs that would have been nearly impossible to obtain without significant effort before (visiting obscure record stores, flea markets, etc.).
Now in my second year with the service, I still listen to those playlists occasionally, but most of my listening involves the classic rock songs I normally consumed when my access to blues was more limited. My music consumption tail is long, but it seems most of my listening is in the far left, steep portion of the curve.
It’s an admission of failure, a confession that our cultural orbit is a bit more circumscribed than we had imagined it.
exactly. The pressue nowadays to keep up with the Joneses, to be hip when you’ve actually become square, is far more than it ever was (see also the latest NYMag article on ‘Grups), so we order things we don’t watch/listen to because there’s some shame to being, as you say, more “catholic” than our neighbors.
Why’s that pressure so pervasive? Well after 50 years of youth culture, we’ve developed a complete distaste for being adults…even though, with our own best intentions (botox, diets, vigara) we can’t stop it from happening *to* us. Adulthood is a disease that we have to try to fend off any way we possibly can.
and what better way to do it than to purchase films or music that, deep-down, we’re just not interested in.
oh, as for Memoirs of a Geisha…I liked it. It’s a great chick-flick for grown women who are bored with watching the travails of upper-crusty California cuties.
I’m not sure I understand what’s so new here. Of the more than thousand books I’ve acquired over the years – many from second hand book shops in walking distance – I’ve read about one third to half. Most I bought because I had heard about them or read a review or they somehow caught my interest sitting there on the shelves. Some I bought because it seemed appropriate like Proust, Musil or Joyce, but I never read them.
But I see no connection with the long tail. Those I’ve read are from the hit and the tail part of the curve and those still to be read also. And I’m quite sure there are some unread gems in there I would read immediately, if I only would remember that I already own them. How many other things do you buy, which then don’t get enough attention to justify your buy? So what’s new and where’s the problem? We are simply lucky that in our lives time has become much more precious than money.
Me too. Often, I borrow a book from the library, read only part of it or none of it, and return it with a vague sense of shame.
Maybe that because I am part the i-generation, so I have the attention span of 5 minutes.
Babbler, I got about two sentences into that blockquote and then got distracted. Sorry. Nick
Why do we assume that customers who get the DVDs from the head of the distribution watch them? Do we have data that support the claim that customers have a lower “watch ratio” when they rent DVDs from the tail? If not, then the argument is bogus.
I’d say that products in the short head are more likely to be unwatched than the Long Tail. They say the average number of listens per CD sold is less than one.
But if I go to the trouble of finding Les Valseuses or the original cut of Caligula, I’m definitely going to watch it. If someone buys me a Pussycat Dolls CD for Christmas, it’s going straight on eBay/the bonfire.
Memoirs of a Geisha, I’d say, is a short head product. I haven’t got round to watching it either.