Once, popular media was a monolith. In the era of three TV networks, a handful of radio stations, and a local cinema, culture was a shared campfire. Everyone watched the MASH* finale. Everyone knew who shot J.R. Today, that campfire has been replaced by millions of personal screens, each flickering with a unique algorithmically-curated reality. The story of modern entertainment is the story of the "Great Unbundling"—the shift from scarce, scheduled, centralized content to abundant, on-demand, personalized media.
Walk into any cinema or turn on any streamer, and you will see the same trend: original ideas are dying, and pre-sold IP is king. Why risk $200 million on a new idea when you can reboot Harry Potter, spin off Game of Thrones, or create a live-action Tangled? New- XXX VIDEO
This "Marvelization" extends beyond superheroes. We now live in a "Connected Universe" era. Once, popular media was a monolith
The single greatest shift in human media consumption is the collapse of attention span, driven by TikTok. Everyone knew who shot J