To appreciate the current ecosystem, a brief history lesson is essential. For most of the 20th century, popular media operated on a "broadcast" model. A handful of studios and networks (Hollywood, the BBC, NHK) decided what the public would see. Entertainment content was a monologue. When MASH* aired its finale in 1983, over 100 million Americans watched the same screen at the same time. That level of cultural unanimity is now extinct.
The internet changed the paradigm from broadcast to narrowcast. Today, entertainment content and popular media are defined by fragmentation. Streaming services like Netflix and Spotify use complex machine learning to ensure that no two users have the same homepage. We have traded the "watercooler moment" for the "algorithmic micro-genre." deeplush+22+07+27+kazumi+squirts+indulgence+xxx+exclusive
Yet, paradoxically, while the delivery system has fragmented, the influence of popular media has intensified. In the 1950s, television was a piece of furniture in the living room. Today, entertainment content is a portable god that lives in our pockets, whispering to us via push notifications 24/7. To appreciate the current ecosystem, a brief history
What will entertainment content and popular media look like in 2030? Deep content: We have entered the "infinite jest"
A defining feature of the 2020s is self-aware media that comments on its own mechanisms:
Deep content: We have entered the "infinite jest" phase—irony layered on sincerity layered on weakness. The primary emotional register is post-ironic fatigue. We know the system is broken (attention economy, franchise filmmaking, influencer grift), but we cannot exit it. So media becomes a cathartic airing of that very trap.