It’s no secret that there is so much on the internet for our minds to consume and most of it seems to be 10 minutes or less. What does that say about all of the films that are 2 hours or more in length? I have a feeling they have lived in people’s “watchlist” for a very long time. 

Almost every adored celebrity or social media personality is on YouTube producing videos that are no more than 30 minutes long. Also, celebrities aside, apps like TikTok are giving an outlet for everyone, regardless of degree or career, to make entertaining content. Tiktok’s are an astonishing 15 seconds long. In just 15 seconds these videos will successfully tell an entertaining story and you don’t even need to have the app to experience any of them. These quick videos are shared throughout every social media platform, sometimes even news outlets. They are sort of hard to ignore. Is this the reason less people are committing to watching a 2 hour film? 

Personally, if I have a couple hours to spare at night I try to pick a movie that is about an hour and a half so I have time afterwards to roam the internet. Even if I have enough time to watch a beautiful three hour film (which I often do), that would mean I wouldn’t have as much time to check my phone. It’s kind of scary to think I get anxious about not being able to check my phone for three hours. However, I think it has a lot to do with being under lockdown regulations. 

I’ve been told by friends and family that they used to come home at night after a busy day with almost no energy left and find so much joy in the simplicity of putting a movie on and then going to sleep afterwards. It was their way of winding down and letting one story be told to them. However, now that the face to face interactions have been reduced exponentially I assume that at the end of the day our minds aren’t as exhausted as they used to be. Maybe the 15 second videos are making us as excited as the office gossip used to. 

I know most of us have the time for these long films, because we binge watched all of “Grey’s Anatomy” in the last 8 months. But maybe because we have a lot less in many ways because of the lockdown, we now crave the “more” that the internet gives us. One of the losses we’d had to take because of the lockdown is not being able to go to the movie theatre. I know a lot of people that never really watched movies at home but will go to the movies almost every weekend. 

If the lockdown has made that impact, then maybe we shouldn’t take those films off our watchlist just yet. Maybe 2+ hour movies aren’t so hot right now, but we’re all going to watch “Tenet”…eventually…