We've all asked ourselves the question at least once: When is Rihanna going to give us another album? I've seen it about one hundred times on my Twitter timeline, in the comments under every one of her Instagram posts...safe to say she won't have to worry about her music not being well received when the time comes. And while it's all fun and games, what lies underneath this question is a dangerous precedent that this generation has set when it comes to our entertainment.
Instant gratification is a term we are all familiar with at this point, with our technology and constant ability to refresh our social media timelines for new content. We want the fastest Wifi, the newest phone, the most updated news, the next season, new music from our favorite artists. The problem with this is that we expect to get it when we want it. There is a strong sense of entitlement when it comes to entertainment, media, music, etc.
Too often, we treat people we can't seem like they're not human. Rihanna should give us her next album because we feel it's been too long since her last album drop so she should just get in the studio and make it. Right? No, but unfortunately that's the rationale most people are using. It seems as if it's not a big deal, just a joke, but it reveals something very startling about the way we receive and demand content.
How many times have we seen our favorite YouTubers make a "taking a break" video because the pressures of their job combined with their personal life were too much? Then they tell us they don't know how long they will be gone and that they understand if we want to unsubscribe/unfollow. Why is this the norm? Because people nowadays want their content so easily that if it's not delivered exactly how and when they want it, they're not interested. The Internet has made it so that if our content creators and artists aren't constantly active, posting on every platform, people get unreasonably angry about it. We tend to treat public figures as machines, meant to pump out movies, shows, albums, and videos for us.
Very few people are willing to let artists make content for themselves and want to instead consume it as if it is their own. What happened to the creative process and allowing artists to take their time to make the music they want to make? The other side of the double-edged sword is that the Internet is ruthless and artists have been receiving an unnecessary amount of criticism and hate for their music, not putting it out soon enough, not promoting, not making the music video the fans wanted, etc.
The entertainment and media industry has become a very difficult place for a lot of creators simply because "fans" feel so entitled to demand — without shame — what creators should be making.