Hollywood Doesn’t Own Storytelling Anymore
By Makenzie Carlin, Grace Helsing and Anna Miller
In a recent column lamenting the state of cinema, the author poses a pointed question: “What ever happened to watching a movie?” The piece paints a vivid — and admittedly entertaining — portrait of modern moviegoing, in which memes, endurance-viewing contests and chatbot-enhanced screenings encourage viewer participation. But beneath the satire is a deeply nostalgic concern: that the communal, focused experience of watching a film is being eroded by distraction, fragmentation and corporate bloat.
It’s a sentiment we understand. Mourning what feels like a cultural loss is human. But as Gen Zers working in communications, we believe the better question isn’t what happened to movie-watching — it’s why should watching a movie always look the same?
We recently completed a series on the history of communications [fratelli.com], tracing how our craft has evolved alongside innovative technologies by finding new ways to meet the moment and connect with the times.
We’ve gone from oral storytelling to the printing press, from radio to television, from the silver screen to the scrolling feed. With every technological and cultural shift, skeptics have asked whether we’re losing depth, attention or substance. And yet, with each shift, we’ve found new ways to connect, express ourselves and create art.
Storytelling doesn’t disappear when the medium changes — it adapts. When the cable executive Ted Turner launched 24-hour news, he didn’t destroy journalism; he reshaped how we consume it. In much the same way, smart phones and social media aren’t ruining cinema, they are adapting the movie-going experience to meet cultural shifts and connect with Gen Zers like us.
This is not to say we condone texting at the movies or, for the record, doing backflips in the theater. And while the meme-ification of some films can get out of hand, social media discourse can also help generate real community, something that resonates with our generation. Fans can connect with one another to quote lines, debate endings, remix trailers, fan-cast sequels and stage viral re-enactments. That’s not disengagement — that’s deeper engagement.
To view this as cultural decay is to overlook a crucial truth: we are all, increasingly, storytellers. The tools of production, once locked inside Hollywood studios, now live in our pockets. Beyond smartphones’ ever-improving video quality, AI tools are expanding who gets to be a filmmaker — assisting with animation, 3D rendering and voiceover generation. These technologies lower the barriers to entry and open entirely new pathways for storytelling, empowering unexpected creators.
If we truly care about the future of cinema, we should look beyond the box office. The next wave of storytelling won’t be defined solely by studios or film schools. It will emerge from gamers, fan editors, technologists and coders. As with the launch of cable news, innovation often comes from industry outsiders. As Hollywood continues to be scrutinized for an over-abundance of remakes and sequels, it should welcome new perspectives.
At the end of the day, it’s creativity — not nostalgia — that keeps any art form alive from generation to generation. We’re in an age where movies are reacted to, talked over, revised and sometimes recreated. The format may be less fixed, and the boundaries more porous, but the desire to tell and share stories remains. Rather than mourn movie-watching as we know it, we should look forward to what a movie experience can become next.