Recently a new application called "Runpee" has become the darling of
blogs and Internet culture commentators. The vast majority of the
coverage has focused on what the application does on a surface level.
Specifically, Runpee's team of reviewers watch new movies as soon as
they come out in order to provide summaries of scenes which they believe
are worth missing when one needs to take a bathroom break. However, few
seem to be focusing on the fact that when one looks deeper, this
application is promoting a highly unwelcome trend: the use of wireless
Internet service in movie theaters.
The idea behind watching a movie in a movie theater, as it is
understood by most people, is that seeing a film on the "big screen,"
with the sophisticated projection equipment and sound systems that
commercial theaters possess, allows one to fully lose oneself in the
experience of a particular film. For this reason, it has long been taboo
in movie theaters to talk or even whisper, to take mobile phone calls,
or to bring screaming children. However, in the last ten years or so,
the norms have been disintegrating more and more, with talking in movies
epidemic at some screenings, and it all of a sudden having become
socially acceptable to check one's phone for text messages and even
respond to them during movies. If the problem with talking during movies
is that this distracting speech disrupts from the immersive movie
experience, why is disrupting a dark theater with a bright backlit smart
phone screen any different?
The emergence of Runpee, an application which actually encourages
people to access their wireless Internet service while in a dark, quiet
movie theater, seems to have taken this change in norms of etiquette to a
completely new level. It's not clear why it is now so acceptable to
disrupt the experience of other people while watching a movie, but one
theory is that this has to do with a change in the purpose of going to a
movie theater in our society. These days, inexpensive home theater
systems are available that can produce the booming bass and audio
clarity that once upon a time only huge movie theater apparatuses could
produce. Additionally, projector technology has brought the big-screen
feel into home theaters. Therefore, it is no longer necessary to visit a
movie theater to be overwhelmed with the sensory experience of going to
a movie. It may be possible that, as a result, seeing a movie these
days is more of a social experience than anything else. Maybe it's just
that as with all other things in our wireless Internet age, one is now
expected to interact with and comment on movies in real time, even if
that means being in a movie theater while doing it.
