The Attention Economy Strikes Back

Why I've decided to end my Severance dalliance

By the time the titles came up on “Return of the Jedi,” I knew I’d be writing about being duped into watching it by a podcast I like but would never recommend.

The show is just two guys saying, “This happened, and then that happened, and remember how cool it was when this happened?” with one of them interrupting with the occasional piece of trivia. Hearing them do “The Empire Strikes Back,” made me a little nostalgic for the first part of “Return of the Jedi,” where our heroes are reunited in maybe the last great moment in Star Wars.

For context, in 1980 we saw Han Solo frozen in a cliffhanger no one saw coming. Three years later, I entered the theater with exhausted anticipation. I’d been almost-ten at “Empire.” Now I was almost-13, with “gleeful” fading from my emotional repertoire. If men in their 50s seem to get unduly defensive about Star Wars, it’s likely because 1983 was the last time glee came so easily at the movies.

The Great Tinkering

A friend made an excellent point about why he was so unhappy with the latest Star Wars trilogy. He was personally (and rightly) offended that we never got a reunion scene for the older crew. No Luke, Han, Leia, Chewbacca, and the droids, which is what you had hoped to see.

The reminder transported me to 1983, and the genuine adolescent pleasure of seeing my old friends together in Jabba’s lair. The novelty is the most difficult thing to convey. I’d never seen a movie end with “To be continued.” Even on TV, it rarely took more than a summer to pay off a cliffhanger. This was a 36-month catharsis.

The promise of touching on that catharsis sent me to my daughter’s Disney+ to rewatch the first 20 or so minutes of “Return of the Jedi.” I never really warmed to the movie, but I wanted to see the gang reunited and pay homage to (if not experience) my adolescent glee as Luke and Han banter before Jabba.

I’m not among those calling for George Lucas’ blood over his tinkering, but watching the segment re-cut with an extended musical performance threw me into a mild despair. I was mad because it existed and mad because I let it ruin my fun. Mostly, though, I was mad at my 12-year-old self for wasting so much emotional energy in what, even at the time, turned out to be a dud of a movie.

Entertainment is SO Much More Expensive Than You Think

I recently ended my television series boycott with a week of bingeing “Severance.” I’d given up on streaming dramas when “The Walking Dead” refused to die. Bound by what had by Season Three become a loveless relationship, I shambled on for years until I realized I was spending precious hours of my life watching them try and figure out how to keep the story going.

Since then, if a show doesn’t have a definite end, I’m not watching. The ending makes the narrative, it gives a point to the story. With no defined ending you end up with bad Star Wars incest jokes and questions about why Darth Vader doesn’t remember C-3PO.

“Severance” is a different animal altogether. In the show, people have a chip in their brain that keeps their home and work memories and experiences separate. It’s clever, tense, and well-acted. The plot intrigued me so much I mentioned it to Kelly one evening and it sparked a long winding conversation about the so-called work-life balance (I’ll write about that soon). Would you choose to have your work and home lives literally separate?

The supposing was intriguing, as was thinking about the implications, like your “work self” never sleeps or showers.

We’re not subscribed to Apple+ (or weren’t at the time), so we didn’t see the show. I half-thought it was a comedy, but it’s a dystopian thriller.

Kelly was visiting her aunt, who has the streamer, and was hooked after the first episode. She tried reading the online explainers and spoilers once she came home, but eventually broke down and subscribed to Apple+ for the rest of (what is now) Season Two. Since we’d already speculated about the show, she asked if I’d like to watch it with her so we could talk about it.

I did, and we have, and it has been great, but there are diminishing returns.

Friday morning, after we had “caught up” to the show, I had to break the news that I won’t be watching Season Three. Halfway through Season Two, it is clear there’s too much left to tell and too many narrative possibilities for them to end it soon and gracefully. This show could be on another decade, and the next five years could be very watchable. All one can hope is that Season Two doesn’t have a cliffhanger ending.

Taking Hostages in the Attention Economy

I’ve always been a little jealous of people who walk out of movies. Once I see the beginning, I need to know the end. I was not built for the 21st-century nighttime soaps.

This isn’t a long way to say, “I don’t like serials,” I just feel like there’s a gray area between an open-ended serial (like Soaps or the WWE) and emotional blackmail.

“The Empire Strikes Back” blackmailed us into seeing “Return of the Jedi.” The movie didn’t hold up on its own, and it held the previous film’s ending hostage.

Let’s set aside intellectual property and its discontents for now, and talk about the attention economy. If you read that last sentence, you made it through more than 1,000 words of text. In 2025, that makes you rarer than you might think.

As someone who works in the attention economy, I’m sensitive to what I spend (or waste) time watching. I know I’m literally paying with my attention as well as whatever the thing I bought costs.

I’ve started to think of these streamer shows as captivity serials. They have to be great long enough for you to be invested, then good is fine. After a while, OK is the best you can hope for.

The larger point is that it’s important to remember you’re owed entertainment for your time, not your money. Streamers sell access to entertainment, the rest is on you. They’re like casinos. Captivity serials are their pumped-in oxygen, giving us the wherewithal to spend hours we normally wouldn’t have the energy to spend.

The George Lucas thing is a critical reminder that, no matter how we feel, no one owes us entertainment, and we don’t owe anyone our attention. It’s hard to stop caring about things, but it’s a lot harder to keep caring as your disappointment mounts season after season.

Eventually, you have some culpability if you’re paying to be bored. Worse, you’re devaluing the price of your attention. We too often talk about the “Golden Age of Television” as if we’re somehow lucky to be able to buy the kind of hit-and-miss entertainment opportunities that used to be free. Captivity serials are not a gift that keeps on giving. They’re a slow death of trust and hope, and, in the end, the best you can hope for is Ewoks.

Keep the Faith,

Tony

PostScript

I finished this late Sunday (I forgot I had to do my taxes), so this is later than I planned. I’m still on target for the podcast, though. As I write this they’ve turned the internet off in Delmar, ostensibly to perform an upgrade but also as a reminder that they can and there’s nothing we can do about it.

Obit

I just found out that Ron Fisher, who I interviewed in July, died in October. I don’t think there’s a connection, but I wish I had shouted him out earlier. As I go back through some of these PinesCast stories, I’m reminded that some of the shows are pretty good. This was one of them. '

In addition to being the dockmaster at Ocean Pines for 20ish years, he was among the first physician assistants. He told me that physician assistants started as a way to make better use of returning combat medics from Korea.

What’s tragic and on-brand for America, is that they stopped doing that. I spoke with so many folks who came back from essentially performing field surgery and couldn’t qualify as ambulance drivers without going back to school.

Anyway, here’s a link to his show and story if you’re interested.

My Big Dumb Head

I’ll live and die and never get how het-up people get over gender and sexuality generally. I’m mostly walled away by my privilege and disinterest in hearing dumb people shout at one another on the tee-vee.

Colorado is trying to pass a law essentially preventing deadnaming and misgendering after death. The fact that that’s an issue for anyone at all, let alone that there needs to be a punitive measure in place to prevent being mean to grieving families disgusts me.

Anyway, it’s one of the topics in my recent funeral news video.

Open Invitation?

I don’t know if it counts as an open invitation since I mention it every week, but you should come hang out on Substack. I know a number of you are happy with just my occasional email, but I’m increasingly seeing people migrate over as Legacy Social Media completes its enshitification cycle.

As I mentioned, I’m working on this new project that’s more beach stuff and less me screaming into the void, so there’s a little something for everyone.

Here are some of my favorite notes this week:

<div class="substack-post-embed"><p lang="en">I’m trying (I’m always trying) to spend less time on my phone, which means that in those transition moments, I’m often sitting on the couch, staring into space, thinking or not-thinking, instead of looking at my phone. My husband will walk by while I’m in one of these pauses and ask, “Are you okay?”

It occurred to me this morning that if I were sitting there looking at my phone, he would not think to ask, “Are you okay?” Staring at my phone is not cause for concern. It’s normal. Staring off into space is concerning. It is not normal.

Think about that. That is the place we’ve come to. The inaction of cultivating boredom and being alone with our thoughts is cause for concern.