Lets Enjoy the Ride

The hot takes, think pieces, and general internet chatter of all things pop culture is wildly frustrating at times. While the internet has widen the availability of anyone to voice their opinion, there by giving a better pulse of thoughts and feelings, it has also turned everyone into critical armchair quarterbacks.

I guess this writer, and this article, can be lumped into that critique. But I don’t think that everything has to be so damn negative and cynical all the time. After watching the latest Game of Thrones episode, I began to read through some of the absurdly fast written articles and tweets posted mere moments after the credits scroll. And everything is so damn critical. Ugh.

People, why can’t we just enjoy something for what it is, in the moment? Stop being so precious about every aspect of a show or film and its characters. We are in the this great moment of Peak Pop Culture. Let’s enjoy the last moments of the ride.

Any creative endeavor is extremely challenging, especially in the infinitely collaborative medium of TV and Film. Doubly so with a world wide sensation. Triply so when you’re trying to bring that phenomenon to a dramatic and fitting conclusion.

The recent criticism of GOT is not an isolated incident. It inevitably happens to any show or film that rises to the top of the pop culture radar. This happened with Avengers Infinity War, Star Wars The Last Jedi, The Walking Dead, and Lost to name a few. Once a show reaches a certain point they, the audience, projects its own cultural weight onto the characters, screaming bloody murder when they are not catered to or are challenged by the choices of the Showrunners/Filmmakers.

This is not to say that opinions and criticism are not valid or warranted or needed. On the contrary, colorful discussions are what fuel the rise in popularity of these shows and movies and help create the collective buzz and shared experiences that are exceeding rare in today’s modern times. But when every friggin website has a friggin story about a friggin barley noticeable Starbucks cup left in a shot of the latest episode of GOT, we have jumped the shark in constructive commentary. They who has never made a mistake, cast the first stone.

All of this is to say that the writers of GOT (and all these franchises) are doing their best to bring this thing home. Decisions need to be made, with many masters to serve, and sometimes needs a little creative license (equity that should have built up over the years), to get the show into the its final resting place.

This has been a wild and fun journey, years in the making. Let’s just enjoy it while we have it and wait for the final episode end credits to roll before we make any grand conclusions of stature and quality of this season, the show, and it’s ending.

Even then, can we wait a few hours to process before posting your ‘mindblowing’ hot take? Thanks.