The Nerds Broke Pop Culture

The NBA is boring.

Those aren’t my words. They’re the words of four-time NBA champion and All-Star Draymond Green.

Draymond’s never been one to hold back an opinion, but his latest one should make the NBA nervous.

Why? Because he’s right.

It’s not that the players are worse – they’re more skilled than ever.

It’s not that TV revenue, attendance or even merchandise sales are down – they aren’t.

It’s that the game has been optimized.

Analytics squeezed every ounce of inefficiency out of basketball, and in doing so, it’s squeezed out a lot of what made it fun.

The three-point shot is the most efficient way to score, so now everyone takes threes. The mid-range jumper? Inefficient. Nobody shoots it anymore.

Get this: before the 2011-12 season, the NBA as a whole had never averaged more than 20 three-point shot attempts per game. This season, no NBA team is averaging less than 31.

League-wide? 37.5 attempts per game.

Possessions are maximized for efficiency. It’s helped teams win more games, but at what cost?

The game is more predictable. It has less style. Less substance.

It’s more…boring.

Put another way, basketball has been solved.

And it’s not just basketball. Optimization is draining the soul out of everything we love – movies, music and more.

Let’s dive in.

***

From Michael Scott and Leslie Knope to McLovin and Selina Meyer – there’s a creative force in Hollywood responsible for bringing your favorite characters to life. 

Her name is Allison Jones.

While you may not know the name, you’re most certainly familiar with her work – The Office, Veep, Parks and Recreation, Curb Your Enthusiasm, just to name a few.

As casting director, Jones uses her skill and intuition to find the actors that perfectly match the director’s vision – and bring the script to life.

But in a recent interview, Allison said that these days, her job feels less like an art and more like data entry.

Why? Because Hollywood, like basketball, has tried to optimize its product.

Who to cast, how much to pay them, what stories are worth telling – Netflix and other streaming services now lean on data over gut instinct.

The result? Less risk-taking.

“They’ve tried to algorithm-ize creativity,” Jones said. “You can’t do that”.

Well, they’re certainly trying.

***

It’s no accident that Inside Out 2 topped the list of highest-grossing movies in 2024. It was one of nine(!) sequels in the top ten.

The lone outlier? Wicked – which technically isn’t a sequel, but…you get the point.

Why the sequel overload? Because Hollywood ran the numbers.

Pixar’s last few original films underperformed financially (Elemental, Luca, etc.), so the studio publicly stated it would shift its strategy to produce more sequels and spin-offs.

More familiar. More mass appeal. Less risk.

And sure, it worked – Inside Out 2 made a fortune.

But while Pixar found a way to optimize for success, the long-term cost might fall on the audience.

As Derek Thompson put it:

“Blockbusters are kind of boring now, not because Hollywood is stupid, but because it got so smart.”

The film industry isn’t taking as many big risks anymore (looking at you, Toy Story 5).

And it’s not just movies – music is falling into the same trap.

***

Ever feel like all hit songs sound the same?

There’s a reason for that.

Streaming platforms like Spotify pay artists per play. And when you change the way artists get paid, you change the way they make music.

In turn, today’s artists aren’t just writing for artistic expression – they’re writing for the algorithm, optimizing their songs to maximize streams and (of course) go viral on TikTok.

Most modern hits now follow the same formula:

• Chorus/hook within the first 10-15 seconds (to prevent listeners from skipping the song)

• Repetitive lyrics, melodies and beats (so the song is easier to remember and go viral)

• Simple chord progressions (I’m honestly not sure what this means, but that’s what the experts tell me)

• Shorter song length (because shorter songs mean more repeat streams)

One of my favorite artists, Quinn XCII, is a perfect example of this shift.

His 2016 debut album, Bloom, had seven songs averaging 3 minutes, 39 seconds each.

His 2024 album? 16 songs, averaging 2 minutes, 42 seconds.

More songs. Less depth.

It’s not necessarily good or bad – but has the music lost its magic?

I’d argue it has.

***

And then there’s baseball – the godfather of optimization.

Since Moneyball, front offices have approached the game like an equation.

Launch angle, anyone?

The problem is that the solution doesn’t look much like the sport fans grew up loving.

Small ball? Stolen bases? Sacrifice bunts? Too inefficient. 

Teams crunched the numbers and determined the most efficient way to win is:

1. Hit home runs

2. Take walks

3. Avoid outs at all costs

Strikeouts don’t matter as long as you hit enough home runs. Walks are as good as singles. Stolen bases? Too risky.

In 2006, all 30 teams had an overall batting average of at least .250.

In 2024? Only six teams did.

Baseball has turned into a waiting game for a home run.

The league has spent the last few years actively trying to undo the effects of analytics (pitch clock, larger bases, banning the shift) and some changes have worked – no doubt.

But there’s still work to be done to bring back the chaos and unpredictability that baseball once had.

Efficiency doesn’t equal entertainment – that much we know for certain.

***

Whether it’s the NBA’s obsession with the three, Hollywood’s reliance on algorithms, the music industry’s “TikTok-ification” or baseball’s “Moneyball” approach, the trend is clear:

Once something gets solved, it often loses the very things that made people love it in the first place.

Music became repetitive. Movies became predictable. Baseball became robotic.

Basketball became boring.

Can pop culture find its way back?

Good luck trying to solve that.