We live in wonderful times, the poet once wrote. And on social networks (where else, otherwise?), we found a new name to define this era. Welcome to the era of dopamine culture.
Dopamine is a neurotransmitter. It acts on the human brain like kibble on a small dog: it produces an immediate feeling of satisfaction, but of short duration, so much so that he asks for more. Dopamine is not addictive strictly speaking, but it plays a central role in what we can call instant gratification: the constantly renewed desire to be rewarded.
In many industries, we use another word for this: gamification. Life is a game, each little side quest brings its dose of dopamine.
In today’s digital and cultural sphere, where much of what is produced is designed to please, the trend is even more spectacular. Everything is now focused on increasingly instant gratification.
Californian musician and cultural critic Ted Gioia was among the first to put his finger on the proverbial boo-boo after watching US President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address in mid-February. A long, predictable speech, where each sentence is designed to immediately produce its own little emotional reaction.
“Entertainment is dead,” said Ted Gioia. In a lengthy written reflection, he then explains how technology has swallowed the entertainment industries, which themselves have subjugated popular culture almost entirely.
It quickly went viral. You have to be of your time…
Dopamine cultivation
Let’s proceed by clichés. If we go back two or three generations, young Quebecers went out into the alley or went to the neighborhood skating rink to play hockey. In the summer, it was baseball or soccer. More recently, people have started to prefer watching sports on TV, then playing them in the form of video games. In 2024, we can see it clearly: sports entertainment is no longer centered around the practice of sport or even its viewing. Sports betting is leading the charge. For the industry, it pays off. For consumers, betting on micro stocks during professional sports games is very instant gratification that can be repeated at leisure.
Young people from another era collected all their spare change to buy a music album. There were few of them who could count all the albums in their record library by the dozen… Then came digital music. Faced with an infinite quantity of songs, both audiophiles and musicians began to favor songs of ever shorter duration. Today, it’s happening on TikTok — and a viral-quality jingle never lasts two minutes. Fans listen to the first few seconds and if they don’t like it, they slide their finger across the screen and move on to the next one.
Anyone hoping to seduce another person in 2024 will be ill-advised to send them a long love letter. An initial approach via text messaging has even become a little clumsy, when you know that the easiest way to find a soul mate is to scroll to the right through the most attractive profile photos that dating apps offer.
The two parts of Dune directed by Denis Villeneuve were designed to be presented in cinemas, on the big screen. Villeneuve had to remind him several times. He implored fans to get out of their homes. It has recently been questioned whether films longer than two hours are too long for the average modern moviegoer. This is because we can now binge-watch series where the plot is divided into less than an hour per episode. And again, Reels on Instagram and Shorts on YouTube imitate TikTok clips, because it’s the most popular way to watch video: very short, entertaining.
The videos are rewarding. The public is insatiable.
Content Creatures
Technology has swallowed entertainment. The digital giants do not produce cultural goods. They broadcast. They need the addiction caused by instant gratification generated by short interactions to make money. Their users are spending more and more time consuming ever shorter content.
Obviously, their algorithms feed on this dependence. They reinforce the behaviors that keep people engaged on these platforms, and discourage the posting and consumption of content that threatens to break the cycle.
A sign of the times, Ted Gioia’s publication mainly provoked two types of reaction.
Commenters who fear this dopamine culture suggest detoxes, times during which we close apps and turn off screens.
Digital media professionals and content creators of all kinds have quickly identified the best ways to take advantage of this trend.
“Maximize the reach of your content thanks to instant gratification! » they write, in far fewer words than a newspaper article…