[tmazanec1]

As I believe I mentioned, I have two scenarios for the future which I expect:
1) Collapse is mixture of HyperDepression and Black Death.
2) Collapse is mixture of Fall of Rome and Easter Island.
If my optimistic scenario comes to pass, which forms of entertainment will pass through the Collapse, and which will (re)appear in the Recovery? If my pessimistic scenario happens, which forms of entertainment (if any) exist afterwards?

[JackBob]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('tmazanec1', 'A')s I believe I mentioned, I have two scenarios for the future which I expect:
1) Collapse is mixture of HyperDepression and Black Death.
2) Collapse is mixture of Fall of Rome and Easter Island.
If my optimistic scenario comes to pass, which forms of entertainment will pass through the Collapse, and which will (re)appear in the Recovery? If my pessimistic scenario happens, which forms of entertainment (if any) exist afterwards?

[Falconoffury]

Sports that require little equipment will probably survive, such as American football, soccer, and maybe basketball. We might see more plays like in Shakespeare times instead of television. There will also be skipping stones across a lake, hehe. There will still be painting, and musical instruments that don't require electricity. Blacksmithing may one day come back using wood fires to make iron items.

[Such]

hopefully Britney Spears career heads down the nasty side of the Peak as well.

[Matrim]

Well I'm guessing that we'll probably end up thinking of a whack of new things to do for entertainment, but things that will survive might be:

Recreational biking, Hockey (at least in canada), Storytelling, Conversation, Cards, Music (all sorts of instruments that don't require electricity), Artistic expression........

That's all I can think of right now but I'm sure there's plenty I'm not thinking of.

[chris-h]

PC games will survive. And mp3. And educational avi.

[Sencha]

I have one answer to your question of what entertainment will survive:

TABLETOP ROLEPLAYING!!

Not only will people be playing D&D, they'll be living it.

As long as you have something to write with, and write on, you'll be able to record stats and make characters, maps, enemies, NPCs, etc.

As long as you have something to act as a sort of unpredictable factor, like dice, cards, spinner, or something, you can keep the element of randomness.

So, as you can see, I don't know what types of people are going to survive, but nerds will.

[Carmiac]

I'm heavily involved in the SCA, a medieval recreation society, in a very rural part of the US. As a result, most of my entertainment has little/nothing to do with oil, other than getting to large events.

Some of the things I can think of:
Drumming/music
Dancing (We have an amazing local bellydancing troupe)
Sports
Games
Martial arts
Writing
Reading
Art
Socializing

As a side note, I am often amused by the OMG, how will I make/do X in a hard crash scenario posts. For almost every single one of them I know someone that does whatever craft, on a large scale, through the SCA. Come a hard crash, we medieval geeks are going to win.

[gg3]

As a generality, anything that requires transport of large numbers of persons to a site, or in which a site uses large amounts of energy as an ongoing expense relative to its income stream, will be in trouble.

For example, sporting events and concerts that depend on large audiences going to large venues. For example, amusement parks and theme parks. Tourism that depends upon cheap air travel will be gone.

Anything that depends primarily on the transport of *information,* or participation by individuals without need of significant transport usage, will probably do better.

Radio, television, the music industry, movies at least in the form of DVDs or carrier-delivered programming to the home (cable, etc.). These industries use energy once to produce the content, and then very little to distribute it, and the consumers need relatively little energy to play the content.

Particiipatory sports that require relatively little equipment, as someone mentioned above. Local sporting leagues whose games can be attended via local transport at small venues. Local musicians who play at clubs, pubs, and the like.

Board games, card games, FRP games, and outdoor games in addition to sports per-se (e.g. "Hide and go seek" is not a sport as such). Video games and computer games, including their networked versions.

Carmiac, re-enactment organizations are a very interesting case. You have SCA, Civil War re-enactment groups, and similar. I suspect we're eventually going to get "20th Century re-enactment groups," whose chosen time/space context is 1950s - 1960s suburbia. We're already starting to get that with interactive play such as the Sims; and the endpoint of this was predicted in a novel by Philip K Dick (I can't recall the title, but the game was played by grunt-workers in outer space, with the aid of drugs that would place them in the scenes they were playing).

Sex as entertainment depends on safe & reliable & inexpensive contraception. I would expect to see an increase in "telesex" via webcam and similar means; this basically amounts to verbally and visually interactive masturbation. And masturbation in any form is always going to be the #1 most widespread form of entertainment in any society, whether people admit it or not: safe, free, requires no material or energy inputs.

Storytellling will make a come-back. Including storytelling via radio.

In general, any form of entertainment that existed prior to WW2 will probably still exist, with updates for cultural changes; for example people will still go to clubs where they can sing and dance. Any form of entertainment that has persisted since pre-petroleum times will still persist, e.g. singing, dancing, sports. Really, all we would lose would be some of the most recently-developed forms of entertainment, and humans have managed to get along without those for most of our history.

[bart]

I think you've got the entertainment of the future covered, gg3, especially masturbation, lol.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gg3', '
') I suspect we're eventually going to get "20th Century re-enactment groups," whose chosen time/space context is 1950s - 1960s suburbia. We're already starting to get that with interactive play such as the Sims; and the endpoint of this was predicted in a novel by Philip K Dick (I can't recall the title, but the game was played by grunt-workers in outer space, with the aid of drugs that would place them in the scenes they were playing).

[tmazanec1]

Some thoughts:
The internet and WWW will survive the initial stages, though with a lot more dead links (not to mention more brownouts/blackouts). Desktops will be replaced by laptops, with MIPS/milliwatt actually being their main selling point. Video games will survive the Oil Depression, as Hollywood and radio survived the Great Depression. However, XBOX 2/Gamecube 2/Playstation 3 are the end of the hardware line, for either a dozen or a billion years, depending on which alternative outcome of the End of Oil Age transpires. Roleplaying Games will grow in popularity, as Monopoly became so popular in the 30s. They will not be as common in college, where students will be more focused on getting good grades to avoid work camps or Oil War draft, but maybe later, when they are unemployed. Toys will decrease in popularity, especially plastic ones. VR will be the TV of the new Depression-War era, something developed before it but having to wait for the Recovery (if any) to become popular. Novels will become more escapist in tone, but newspapers and magazines will be a lot more interesting (in a Chinese sense). Hobbies will be more geared to self-reliance.
How does this sound?

[tmazanec1]

More thoughts (in case I'm wrong and an intermediate Aftermath occurs):
Radio would be a good source of entertainment. The stations would be set up by such places as hydroelectric power plants, and receivers could be things like crystal sets. They would also be great for communication...you can communicate globally using a fraction of a watt (hams call it milliwatting) and that should allow hand generators to work fine. Paperback books existed pre-oil...they were called penny dreadfuls and dime novels, so they should survive post-oil. Magazines and journals also preceeded petroleum. TV stations would drop from hundreds to dozens in my best case, to one government one (and probably zero) in my middle case, and become fairy tale magic mirrors or be forgotten completely in my worst case. Telephones would be like the Second/Third World in case 1, museum artifacts and collector items in case 2 and puzzles for any archeologists of 3004 in case 3.

[bentstrider]

Well, if we're up to it, we could set aside stores of petroleum and bio-fuel products for emergency fix-ups.
Like maintaining the cell-phone network.
I could just imgine people riding horses and talking on cell-phones at the same time.
Trampling people in the streets because they're not paying attention to where the horse is going.

[bamagirl]

Books, chess, and checkers are already pretty big at my house. I hope the old radio programs have a renaissance. Live entertainment, plays, musicians, etc and arts and crafts will survive.

bentsrider,
Funny you should mention horse riding lol. My husband said he saw someone riding and with a pack horse on our major road at work a few days ago. I bet the guy had a cell phone lol. Hubby and I were joking that this was a sure sign of PO.

Lori