this post was submitted on 05 May 2025
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I think a lot about how we as a culture have turned “forever” into the only acceptable definition of success.

Like... if you open a coffee shop and run it for a while and it makes you happy but then stuff gets too expensive and stressful and you want to do something else so you close it, it’s a “failed” business. If you write a book or two, then decide that you don’t actually want to keep doing that, you're a “failed” writer. If you marry someone, and that marriage is good for a while, and then stops working and you get divorced, it’s a “failed” marriage.

The only acceptable “win condition” is “you keep doing that thing forever”. A friendship that lasts for a few years but then its time is done and you move on is considered less valuable or not a “real” friendship. A hobby that you do for a while and then are done with is a “phase” - or, alternatively, a “pity” that you don’t do that thing any more. A fandom is “dying” because people have had a lot of fun with it but are now moving on to other things.

| just think that something can be good, and also end, and that thing was still good. And it’s okay to be sad that it ended, too. But the idea that anything that ends is automatically less than this hypothetical eternal state of success... I don’t think that’s doing us any good at all.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

On Wikipedia, an article for a deceased person reads, “[The deceased] was,” while an article for a TV show that has ended reads, “The Office is

Feels kinda related in some way

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 hours ago

That seems to me more just a linguistic quirk of how English works.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

I mean that does make sense.

The office is still a show that exists and is watchable and all that. It's not gone. It's more like it went into retirement.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 13 hours ago (3 children)

Devil's advocate: would you use the present tense for the original Batman, or the original Star Trek?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 hours ago

If you want media where you might actually use past tense, consider lost media (like old episodes of Doctor Who), live streams (especially where the person stopped streaming), long-term ongoing series that keep up to date with current events (vlogs, blogs, maybe reality TV?)

[–] [email protected] 7 points 12 hours ago

Take it into the realm of literature, you wouldn't say The Greats Gatsby was a book (unless you were saying it was a book before it was a movie or something like that), because it continues to be a book even when out of print.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 13 hours ago

Yes, I would. Nothing wrong with expecting someone might watch them.