He almost hits on what's changed in my brain, but then kind of wanders into this weird criticism of...things people enjoy.
I think the shift is that we don't have a monoculture anymore (thanks to the Internet and especially social media) so what seems like we're losing nerd culture and these niche interests in "bad" things really just means that everyone can find them now and likewise folks who are into these niche interests can find each other. This change is creating the (for lack of a better term?) "illusion" of mainstreaming. The people who would be interested were always there. It was just the means of mass cultural communication and spread to reach them with whatever interest weren't. The main "stream" is now the main "lake" and everyone's jumped in. Things you think are "bad" can now reach enough "nerds" who think they're good to reach a modicum of popularity. I view this as maybe a good thing?
Of course, the other edge of this sword is that it allows folks who have unhealthy interests and ideas to find each other as well. That's why we've seen an uptick in radical ideologies of all sorts and things like the incel movement take such deep root. Those weren't part of the normalized zeitgeist before, but now that everything's in the pool and given equal cultural footing, it again creates a bubble of popularity that sometimes has an outsized impact.
We have decided that algorithms are the answer to this problem, and maybe that's a good answer. But I think we've also decided that commercial driven, ad laden algorithms are not the answer. So I'm not sure we have a good solution currently. Maybe if we spread some AI on it (and throw some ML and heck a few blockchains in for good measure) we can generate something useful.
Is it true that we don't have a monoculture, though?
The author argues that algorithms have reintroduced monoculture: there was a period before the year 2000 when we had a monoculture (because of the scarcity of information) and a period after 2012 when we had a monoculture (because of effective information-sorting algorithms). The kind of cultural fragmentation you're talking about only existed 2000-2012, or in what he calls the 'hipster era.'
Post-2012, 'nerdy' things like comic book movies and gaming streams are basically mainstream to the point of being inescapable. People who remember the previous 'pre-nerd' monoculture are primed to think of those things as niche and marginal interests, but they're really not.
I definitely could be wrong! I think there will always be cultural centers because people like gathering together (virtually or otherwise). Things like memes and TikTok trends create shared culture, but I don’t think we have a monoculture. The algorithms on these platforms create cultural centers but there are lots of them rather than a meta stream that everyone feeds off of. The vast difference between what I see on my TikTok feed and what my wife and her friends see on theirs is wild. They algorithms are like hipsters that into account things you like haha!
Take a tour around the popular subreddits to see if we have a fragmented culture. I’m often blown away how popular some niche subreddit that I’ve literally never heard of will be even though I’ve been on Reddit for 15+ years! The panoply of ideas and interests on there is super cool to see.
I think the shift is that we don't have a monoculture anymore (thanks to the Internet and especially social media) so what seems like we're losing nerd culture and these niche interests in "bad" things really just means that everyone can find them now and likewise folks who are into these niche interests can find each other. This change is creating the (for lack of a better term?) "illusion" of mainstreaming. The people who would be interested were always there. It was just the means of mass cultural communication and spread to reach them with whatever interest weren't. The main "stream" is now the main "lake" and everyone's jumped in. Things you think are "bad" can now reach enough "nerds" who think they're good to reach a modicum of popularity. I view this as maybe a good thing?
Of course, the other edge of this sword is that it allows folks who have unhealthy interests and ideas to find each other as well. That's why we've seen an uptick in radical ideologies of all sorts and things like the incel movement take such deep root. Those weren't part of the normalized zeitgeist before, but now that everything's in the pool and given equal cultural footing, it again creates a bubble of popularity that sometimes has an outsized impact.
We have decided that algorithms are the answer to this problem, and maybe that's a good answer. But I think we've also decided that commercial driven, ad laden algorithms are not the answer. So I'm not sure we have a good solution currently. Maybe if we spread some AI on it (and throw some ML and heck a few blockchains in for good measure) we can generate something useful.