Writing

I started caring about watching movies around the end of senior year of high school, as in caring about what it meant to ‘care’ about movies. This was part of a larger change in me caring more about media in general, but I think it really centers around movies, and this is especially because of Letterboxd. Letterboxd came to me through the same avenue as most things during covid, Tiktok. Letterboxd was a way to, obviously, share what I was watching, but more importantly, a way to seem cool and curate an image of myself. It was less so a way to care about movies and more of a way to care about caring about movies, if that makes sense.

I of course watched and liked and even… cared… about movies before Letterboxd, but the site added a new dimension, making movies, even when watched alone in my room, a social event. You have always been able to find what other think about a movie, but now others could see what I thought about movies, especially those who I really wanted to see what movies I cared about. The easiest way to think of letterboxd is as a social media, which it is, and which also means it carries all the anxiety and performance that something like Instagram or Tiktok might.

Letterboxd took away any sense of spontaneity, for me, as watching movies became less about watching and more about whatever I was going to post on Letterboxd. All movie choices came from a long long watchlist that did more harm than good, and I think I started missing out on a lot I might’ve really liked. I don’t really know if this a true epidemic with letterboxd, my girlfriend uses it for everything she watches and it doesn’t ever seem to be an issue. Yet case-in-point, 90% of movies I watch now come from her recommendation which has done me a lot better so far.

Most of the time, with these sort of conversations with myself surrounding pointless looping blah blah blah, I usually arrive at the decision to simply just not think about it anymore. These are the kinds of questionings and thought-processes that don’t really take me anywhere beyond frustration or boredom, but hey, I felt inspired to write today. A better word might be apathy – big and overdramatic but applicable. I wish that what Letterboxd did for me – forcing me to care about something to at least find one thing to say about it. Yet I think the site cares too much about image – what are your four faves, what are your favorite celebrity’s four faves, etc. I’ve lost my point a bit here.

I don’t like the website. I watch what I like more now that I don’t use it, and am better at recognizing what I really don’t like. It’s still easy to be annoying about movies, but I like not being a part of the letterboxd community. I’m trying to break down why exactly I don’t like it so much, maybe it really is just because it’s gotten too popular and just isn’t so seemingly ‘underground’ to me now, but it really had taken something out of watching movies. I don’t want to see the number of movies I’ve seen this year, because no matter how hard I try to not care, I know I’ll want that number to go up. I’ve had nothing listed as my four favorites forever, but i also know that is a conscious choice that is trying to show something.

Not that theres anything wrong with wanting to be seen, but I don’t like it in that format. There’s an odd sense of competitiveness, proving oneself, that I don’t like and don’t like how it has shaped my own view of movies and those who care about movies.

I still look at Letterboxd sometimes, that url is embedded within my subconscious and if I’m bored on my laptop my fingers still reach for the ‘l’. I have stopped logging, but I’m trying to not make it a statement. That seems hypocritical to write in a multi-paragraph blurb that looks eerily similar to a statement, but the key word is ‘trying’. I’ve hit my wall here, don’t got much else to say. Letterboxd is lame and I don’t like it because it got too big and isn’t cool anymore. There’s the summary. Also Project Adam is terrible and a great example of a movie that no one should ever talk about because it sucks so much.