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Comment by jwells89 | Hacker News Reader

I tend to agree, and you can kind of see the creep of “seriousness” increase over the years in popular media (characterized by dark/edgy/gritty/“realistic” tones), with the Nolan Batman films being something of an inflection point.

Compare the TV and movies from the past 15 or so years to that of the mid-late 90s and early 00s and there’s a stark contrast, with the older media having more of a tendency toward being colorful, optimistic, positive, fun, silly, campy, etc.

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Eh, I'm pretty sure the author is arguing about "seriousness" in a "professional" sense as opposed to a "large consequence" sense.

I think the proliferation of "large consequence" has to do with lazy writing and if you have a bunch of people "save the world" now they need to one-up it so it becomes "save the star system". So when you have a ton of sequels being produced they need to keep getting larger and larger consequences for the plot line.

However, on the lack of "professionalism" I think the author is spot on. Their initial example is that "Pumpkin Spice" contains no Pumpkin. Saying you're doing X while you'r e not doing X is very unprofessional (unserious).

> "Pumpkin Spice" contains no Pumpkin.

And "Baby Oil" contains no Baby. Usually.

So it's a spice for pumpkins?

Interestingly enough, what survives as pumpkin spice today used to be an incredibly popular spice mix - powder douce - going back to the Middle Ages, and used on everything from apple pie, to roast meat, to wine. Mulled wine is basically pumpkin spice wine.

Yes, it's the spice mix used in pumpkin pie and some other pumpkin dishes.

> And "Baby Oil" contains no Baby. Usually.

And bathrooms don't usually have a bath

How am I supposed to rest in the restroom when people keep coming in and making noise?

Even save the star system seems to be too small now. There's now save the universe plots or even save the multiverse plots.

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