Twenty years ago, popular media was a monoculture. If you asked someone about the season finale of Friends or the latest American Idol winner, there was a statistically high chance they had seen it. Today, that "water cooler" moment has shattered into a thousand niche shards.
The advent of radio and then broadcast television created the "watercooler moment." Mass media meant mass media. Three major networks dictated what America watched. Entertainment content was scarce, expensive to produce, and top-down. A single episode of M A S H or The Ed Sullivan Show could unite 50 million people simultaneously. Popular media was a lecture: the few spoke, and the many listened. ExploitedCollegeGirls.24.08.01.Sloane.XXX.1080p...
Today’s popular media is an intricate web of overlapping sectors. Here are the dominant pillars that hold up the modern content ceiling. Twenty years ago, popular media was a monoculture
Where is heading? The horizon is dominated by three trends: The advent of radio and then broadcast television