The first ever instance of storytelling can be backdated to 27,000 years ago when cave paintings were used in order to explain a narrative or a myth. Storytelling then, was more than just a way of communicating. It was a way of surviving.

Storytelling has been deep rooted in our culture. We might have begin using it to explain other Neanderthals about the dangers in a particular area, but with time we begin to use it expressing ourselves. Storytelling became more than just a survival message to an art and leisure.

Back in the days, during the early days of the internet there was something to look forward to on the net. It was that far away corner of our city where you knew investment would a right option but you always stayed away because of not many people using it. Now, it’s a bustling neighborhood.

With people trying to fit in, create value for offerings during the internet boom, we saw a peak in storytelling. Back then, I believe everyone was a creative personality. Everyone was trying their hands on something or the other. Top games were released in 2012. Their storyline was far better the games that we see nowadays.

2008 - 2013, You would actually see people trying all crazy stuff, exploring all various type of fictional narratives, experimenting with different kinds of storylines, whether it was magic, zombies, alien attacks, war movies, romance, one-sided love, horror. Point is, people all across the globe were trying to find that niche something that they can create out of their imagination and turn it into a tangible piece of art. It was that era of Facebook profile picture with heavy vignettes & cool fonts to someone posting photos of themselves with holding a misspelled Starbucks Frappuccino in One Hand while their 360p YT video is still showing the buffering Icon. It was like a transitional yet vibrant era.

Later, we see that these people who have been experimenting really gets the hold of the niche they were trying to focus on. They find their art. I believe that the people who took all these years, collectively came and made 2016 - 2019 era the best years when it comes to storytelling.
The whole world was dancing, practicing and vibing on ‘Lean On’, doing #MannequinChallenge on Black Beatles. While some teenagers were vibing on Stressed Out by 21P or singing out loud “Sorry” by JB. Moving back from Nostalgia and coming to the point, back then, creators had a vision, they were ready to think and to build on stuff, not because it would get them famous or give them limelight ( for GenZs: Limelight = Clout). That’s why when you think of the kind of stuff that you were listening to and watching you would see a lot of them comes from this era.

From Mr. Robot, Stranger Things, to La La Land, Arrival. This era has given us all, back then the ideas were fresh, they were worthing trying for, worth telling, creating a whole story, background and building each and everything from ground up really mattered because people wouldn’t just consume any shit you give them.

Sadly, if you think about it, that’s what OTTs have been doing, I believe that they have come to a realization that people are now content hungry. We just want to see something, it doesn’t have to be a good narration a good plot line or a new angle like we see in Stranger things or Arrival. It has to be something that’s fast, convenient and__mindless. My observations tells me that most of the shows on Netflix, Prime and Hotstar+ are bought from Third-party vendors at cheap rates and fulled with deep pocketed marketing budgets to sell us the same ugly, undeveloped, brainrotted storyline.
If I ask you, when was the last time you watched something great that was produced in-house by the teams of the big 3 OTT platforms. You won’t be able to.

Prime in some region has started showing ads, the very space OTT fought for- No ads, just content. With the content quality going down, pricing going up and ads creeping in, I really want to understand if majority are going to become a ‘pirate__’ or will leave the watching content all together (they can try)

If storytelling began as a way to survive, then somewhere along the timeline, it also became a way to feel alive. From the earliest cave paintings 27,000 years ago to the sprawling epics of today, stories have always served a purpose. They helped us make sense of chaos, bond as tribes, preserve wisdom, and reflect on our place in the world. Walter Fisher’s Narrative Paradigm Theory argues that humans are natural storytellers. That we make decisions and derive meaning through logic of stories, not through cold rationality. We don’t consume stories, we live through them. They shape how we see ourselves in the world.

However nowadays, that scared bond between creator and consumer is weakening. What once was a risk-taking, great vision narrative has flattened into mass-produced content, driven by algorithms than art. In this day and age where attention is currency, most OTT platforms have adopted a quantity over quality mindset. In this chase for algorithmic gains, we have lost the soul of storytelling, the art of storytelling.

What we witness, isn’t laziness. It’s a subtle form of disdain, a quiet corporate apathy towards the audience’s intelligence and emotional appetite. We are no longer into a new crafted worlds, rather we are served we pre-packaged templates tested for retention, optimized for dopamine and hollowed by originality. The arc of good storytelling has been replaced by “fast content”.
The question remains, WHAT NOW?

Do we continue to scroll, binge, and settle for the “just okay”? Or do we start demanding better? (idk how?)

Do we even remember what it felt like to wait for a season premiere, to discuss plot twists like folklore, to find yourself in someone else’s words?

Maybe the problem isn’t that we’ve stopped caring about storytelling. Maybe the real tragedy is that we’ve forgotten what good storytelling feels like.

And until that changes, the platforms will keep feeding us more of the same.

Because we’ll keep watching. Because it’s easy. Because they can.

But maybe, just maybe, we remember that stories once saved us. Stories that blew our minds and maybe, if we’re lucky, they still can.