In the previous article, we discussed the core purpose of a great story: to provide meaning to our suffering through entertaining them, and how modern filmmakers often fail by treating the natural results of a good story as pre-packaged ingredients. This destructive impulse, however, is not limited to the creators. It also infects the audience, and it forces us to confront a hard truth about our relationship with the art we love. This truth is inextricably linked to a phrase coined by the philosopher Marshall McLuhan: “the medium is the message.”
McLuhan’s core argument was that the form in which a message is delivered fundamentally shapes its content. The message of the printing press, as I’ve pointed out in my articles about AI, was not just the stories within its books, but the very act of mass-produced, linear thought. We have a similar situation today, in that our medium has changed, but as with back then, our expectations have not.
The original Alien and Aliens were products of the cinematic medium. They were experienced communally, in a dark theater, on a large screen that filled your field of vision. The sound enveloped you. You were trapped in a room with a hundred strangers, all feeling the same terror, all sharing the same sense of a singular, linear narrative that could not be paused. The message of that medium was immersion, epic scale, and a powerful, uninterrupted flow.
“The message of that medium was immersion, epic scale, and a powerful, uninterrupted flow.”
Modern entries into these classic franchises, like the TV series Alien: Earth, are products of a different medium: streaming. This medium is defined by fragmentation and convenience. It is consumed on a small screen, often while multitasking, and with the ability to pause at a moment’s notice. The very message of this medium is one of choice, convenience, and a lack of permanence. It prioritizes “content” over a singular, immersive “work.”
And here lies the key to the phenomenon I call “fanlighting.” Fan communities, desperate for their beloved franchises to return to a standard of quality they remember, will actively gaslight themselves and others into believing that a new installment is good, even when it is not. They are trying to find the message of the old medium—the epic scope and immersive terror—in the new. They will look past the cheap production design, the illogical plot, and the utter lack of thematic coherence, because to admit otherwise is to admit that the well has run dry. It is to accept the heartbreak that the catharsis and meaning they found in the originals will not return.
