As the television and media industries bloom, the best shows are not to be forgotten, and they seem to have a common denominator. Long-lasting television shows like Friends provide the unique quality of accessibility which makes it so easy to recite lines from.. You can turn on the television in the middle of an episode and know who is who and what they’re doing.
Quantity revolves around familiarity – and television shows from the early 2000s encapsulate this concept. Friday Night Lights, The Office, and Gossip Girl are just a few examples of how long-running television shows attract a crowd. More episodes allows for a deeper exploration of the character’s personas.. A longer based television show also showcases the progression of a character, allowing the audience to grow a personal attachment with the character as they grow on screen.
However, quantity is not just an asset in television shows. Movie series such as Harry Potter or Twilight have created such a mass following that each movie essentially funds itself. The Harry Potter movies are a strong example of quantity. With Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone’s release in 2001 until the second part of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in 2011 – the fan base for the wizarding world that JK Rowling created increased dramatically. With seven movies, quantity was important for this series in order to fully explain the same storyline and detail Rowling produced in her books.
In the translation of writing to the big screen, quantity usually takes precedence. Series like Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo or The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han are two book series that have quickly turned into popular TV shows. Bardugo’s second season has just been released on Netflix, and Han’s success following her first season has left Amazon Prime promising a release for the second season very soon.
However, our lyrical geniuses face a different challenge: meeting the demand for new music. Fans can become very adamant on social media while they wait for new music from popular artists. Some artists go for quantity, releasing new music fast enough to feed their fan base and keep their careers afloat. Taylor Swift is a prime example of this tactic: releasing over six albums in the past three years. Some variations of her albums are a part of this, as Swift uses her long career as a way to reinvent her older music. Other artists choose a different path in an attempt to build up excitement and anticipation before new music is released. However, this can prove to create a problem as fans grow frustrated in waiting for new music. Olivia Rodrigo is an example of this. Rodrigo’s fan base grew an exceptional amount when releasing her first real album Sour in 2021. In spite of this, She has recently received online hate for her lack of music production, with fans tweeting she may “fall off’ if she does not construct and release new music soon.
Quantity can trump quality in cases such as these, where fans’ obsessions with different forms of media can create a high demand for more produce. Music, television, and movies all are forms of media that create connection between viewer and listener to the artist that increase the need for more episodes, songs, and movies.