Hanna Xu | Student Life

I interned for the government last summer, and while I was initially given large amounts of theoretically important work, in the last couple of weeks, my assignments dried up. On a good day, I’d be asked to set up a conference room or take inventory. More often than not, once I finished delivering papers in the morning, I’d be done for the day. In response to my requests for work, my bosses would tell me to sit tight.

Fortunately, I had been equipped with a laptop, and I was able to whittle away the hours parked on Facebook and reddit. This was all well and good at work, but I did the same thing at home. When I took classes over the summer, when I wasn’t out or in class, I was doing exactly the same thing, though the lack of a supervisor meant Hulu was also thrown in to mix it up.

I had, I realize now, lost the ability to entertain myself not plugged into something, and had the quaint idea of reading not been given to me as an alternative to the internet, I might not have recovered it.

I don’t think I’m alone in this. Earlier in the summer, a few friends of mine conveyed a similar message, lamenting how they could no longer read a book for hours on end and look up to find it was dark out. A lot of us, it seems, fill up our downtime with mindless, intellect-dulling entertainment.

We don’t have to. I made the conscious decision to cut the Internet—with the exception of occasional checking of email, Facebook and news—out of my life three weeks ago. The first day, I read “The Sun Also Rises.” In the next few days, I read the complete short stories of Ernest Hemingway. I would be surprised if my total daily time online exceeds half an hour.

I’m amazed at how much fuller my life feels. When I’m alone in my free time, I’m not reading Internet comics or having empty IM conversations with people I don’t care enough about to see in person. I’m reading. I’m expanding my mind. There’s a reason my vocabulary is the size it is today, and it’s not because I spent my afternoons as a child giggling at pictures of cats.

I’m not saying that everyone should give up the Internet for books; that’s just one of the many options available. Take a walk (the weather’s beautiful, but not for long), learn an instrument, knit, do just about anything else, and you’ll have put your time to better use.

There’s so much to be done and experienced in the world, but it will all pass you by if you, like I used to, spend hours every day staring at the dim glow of your computer monitor.

Movies

Hulu’s movie selection leaves much to be desired. I’m sure that somewhere, someone reading this online or in lecture just exclaimed, “What? I didn’t know that Hulu had movies!” Yes, yes they do, and I do not blame you for your ignorance or your incessant lack of an inner monologue. To borrow a phrase from a TV show that Hulu no longer carries, “The facts are these”: Hulu carries about 900 feature films. Sure, it sounds like a lot when you first hear it (I mean, think about how many shelves a collection like that would take up, but we’re talking about the Internet’s shelves here, and they probably can’t get filled up). Why aren’t there more, Hulu? Why is one of your featured films a Lifetime movie?

To expand, if Hulu were personified as some guy on your freshman floor, he’d be the one weirdo who was always trying to sell you on his obscure, sexual taste in movies.

“Check out ‘Strictly Sexual,’” he’d snort, dangling the DVD over your head while frothing at the mouth. “Or maybe you’re more of a ‘Love Sick: Secrets of a Sex Addict’ kind of person. It’s a Lifetime Original Movie, you know.”

Sheesh. Please, let’s move on to Netflix. While Netflix made a name for itself by renting out physical DVDs, its “Watch Instantly” section is not too shabby. How many movies can you watch? I’ll tell you one thing: I could count all of the movies on Hulu, but I couldn’t even begin to count all of the movies Netflix makes available. There are simply too many.

Perhaps a better measure of library size is the search button. Look for a movie on Netflix, and you’re going to find it, if not streaming online, then available to be shipped straight to your door. Look for a movie on Hulu, and your search will turn up either something random, something involving breasts or something starring Kieran Culkin. That’s all Hulu is. It’s Kieran Culkin all the way down.

Television

Hulu took a beating in the last round, but we all know that Hulu is really all about the TV, and movies are just a strange, perverted hobby for the guy. So Hulu is going to wipe the floor with Netflix when it comes to TV-viewing, am I right?

Well, yes and no. Yes, Hulu feels like the most important website in the world when you’re trying to catch up with your favorite shows. I can’t tell you how many Monday nights I’ve checked the time, seen it’s 9:02 p.m. and realized that I’ve missed “24” again, sending me into the beginning stages of a frenzied panic attack. Then I remember that Hulu posts the episodes on Tuesday, and things feel good again. We’re college students; we’re allowed to miss shows, and Hulu makes the anxiety go away.

And yes, Hulu is surprisingly good if you’re looking for lesser-known, nostalgia-laden shows, like “Newsradio” and “Jackie Chan Adventures.” But Hulu often has this maddening habit of only presenting five episodes at a time. Hulu’s hands are tied by the distributor, but if I want to have a “Firefly” marathon, I can’t do that on Hulu. I have to wait at least eight weeks for all of the episodes to be posted. That’s not watching a marathon! That’s a summer season of “The Bachelor”!

You know where I can have a “Firefly” marathon? Netflix, because it always has the whole series available. Hulu is best if you want to watch the most recent episodes of current shows. If you want anything else, go to Netflix. For example, Hulu carries the six most recent episodes of “The Office,” but Netflix has the first five seasons! Unfortunately, Netflix’s problems are a mirror image of Hulu’s, as you can almost never find more current episodes on Netflix.

As a state-certified Television Fanatic, I endorse both services. Use Hulu to stay on top of things, and use Netflix to learn your history.

Price and service

All right, so Hulu didn’t sweep the TV category like we all expected it to, but this round has got to be a sure thing for Hulu because Hulu is free and Netflix costs $9 a month and up. No way Hulu loses this section, right? Again, the answer is “sort of.”

Truth, Netflix costs $9 a month, and truth, Hulu is currently free. But it won’t be free for much longer. According to the Los Angeles Times, Hulu will launch Hulu Plus within the next month. The new service will clock in at a Netflix-esque $9.95 monthly subscription fee, and it will provide adopters access to a comprehensive backlog of television shows, while keeping the five most recent episodes free.

Sounds a lot like Netflix, if you ask me. It’s great news that Hulu is finally getting serious about expanding its TV selection, but it’s not enough. If Hulu is going to cost more than Netflix, it has to beef up its movie collection, too. Plus, don’t forget that your $9 Netflix subscription also lets you rent DVDs for as long as you want. Netflix makes Hulu Plus look overpriced and underwhelming.

As for services, Hulu has a great set of discussion forums tied to complete series and to individual episodes. Netflix doesn’t have message boards, but it does have a robust recommendation system that borders on “so accurate it’s freaky” levels. On the “neat-o” side of things, you can also beam Netflix to your Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii for free. TV just looks better when it’s shown on TV.

Conclusions

Looking back at this article, it looks like I’ve bashed Hulu into oblivion, and I don’t want the reader to walk away with that impression. Netflix is superior when it comes to watching movies and old episodes of TV shows, but Hulu’s greatest asset is nearly its trump card. I can’t emphasize enough how much Hulu has changed the way I watch television. Visiting Hulu is like having TiVo at any computer in the world. It takes the hassle out of television watching.

To wrap things up, there’s no clear winner. If you like movies and older episodes of current television shows, use Netflix. If you want to stay hip to current TV, use Hulu.

You may wonder, “Why should they post videos if they’re not profiting from them?” However, the real issue is that companies like Hulu act as middle-men for media corporations like NBC and FOX, and these companies are realizing how many viewers they have. With this realization, they assume that they now have more power to dictate which shows should be presented, depending on where they get more advertisements.

Once content is placed on the Internet, do Internet television providers like Hulu have the right to take it down simply because they feel like it? The problem presented by Hulu is that its Web site has millions of viewers who prefer the higher quality and dependable show presentation and act on that power—and Hulu knows this.

Indeed, Hulu is somewhat revolutionary in the sense that people can go to a Web site that has permission from several media corporations to post videos that people may not have time to watch when they come out on TV. I’m even willing to go as far as to say that I can deal with the annoying ads that pop up every 10 minutes, as long as I can get the shows I want at the quality of regular TV.

A few years back, when Hulu did not exist, media corporations had to deal with hundreds of Web sites that would take copyrighted videos and post them on the Internet for general viewership. Sites would have questionable sources of movies and videos, but most of them were free and did not have any ads in the middle of the videos. Media giants realized there was no way of winning the war against Robin Hoods of copyrighted videos. So they decided to aid Hulu, a Web site that would have only copyrighted material (with permission, of course) from specific media corporations. Guess who owns Hulu? NBC, FOX and ABC all have major stakes in Hulu ownership; so when Hulu announces that a show will be taken off their Web site, it’s probably due to NBC, FOX or ABC’s demands.

In the end, viewers like us (whom Hulu insincerely thanks) must grit our teeth and look elsewhere for free online television and movies of quality. The idea of Hulu sounds great (especially the free part), but when major corporations start dipping their hands into the batter, commercialization is sure to follow. Yes, it may be illegal to post copyrighted material, but can we ever reach a middle ground where viewers can get free Internet television without the hassles of commercialization and without breaking any laws?

While that debate goes on, I don’t need Hulu anyway. I’ve got Ninjavideo.

Aditya is a junior in Arts & Sciences and a Forum editor. He can be reached via e-mail at asarvesh@artsci.wustl.edu.