‘Pop culture’ isn’t popular anymore. At least, not in the way that it once was. Today, the massive surge in digital content and streaming has fundamentally altered our media landscape. Gone are the days when one could sit down and watch a show knowing that they would be able to go in to work the next morning and talk about it with their similarly plugged-in colleagues. Now, fewer and fewer people are able to say that they have even heard of the show you are watching, let alone have watched it themselves. Can you blame them? In 2024 alone, Netflix added 589 new Netflix original titles to their platform, not including new seasons of old-titles or titles produced by other production companies, of which there are many. It has become increasingly impossible to have your television bases covered and watch everything in the zeitgeist. But what has our generation lost from this lack of monoculture? Is this increased audience choice giving us access to more personalized, relatable stories? Or has the fragmentation of media robbed Gen Z of the ability to collectively bond over television?
Unfortunately, streaming has culled the shared experience aspect of TV.
In 2025, the ritual of watching TV has become predominantly about discovery and convenience. Browse the catalogue of thousands of shows to find something tailored to your interests and watch it wherever and whenever. Streaming platforms today are designed to account for the schedules of their consumers. Television of the 90s and early 2000s was much more rigid. Viewers of the time instead had to manage their schedules to accommodate their TV habits. If you ask any member of Gen X about Sex and the City, Friends, M*A*S*H, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Sopranos, Felicity, Will and Grace, Cheers, or Seinfeld, chances are most of them will know what you are talking about. These were the titans of television in the 80s to the early 2000s, and for good reason. Most of them aired after the average viewer got home from work, typically between 6 and 10pm. This meant that if you wanted to watch something on TV and you forgot to manually record a program, you were forced to watch a show live on one of the approximately 30 channels compatible with your TV’s cable box. This made the act of sitting down to watch TV feel more like an event than a way of passing the time. If you wanted to watch a show, you had to be planted on your couch at a set time to watch the new episode alongside the hundreds of thousands of similarly keen viewers. This act of scheduled “TV time” became a staple in the day-to-day routine of the average consumer, and “event television” became a part of culture.
The term “HBO Sundays” was coined as the day of the week when audiences would collectively watch one of the network’s crown jewel programs at the coveted 9pm time slot. They could then proceed to spend the following week bonding over their shared experience before repeating the cycle the following Sunday. This shared ritual helped boost the popularity of shows like The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, and The Wire in the prime of network television and more recently Game of Thrones, Girls, Euphoria, The White Lotus, and Succession. The Monday following an “HBO Sunday”, the internet would be ablaze with blog posts, reddit threads, and think pieces dissecting the intricacies of the episode. Unfortunately, streaming has culled the shared experience aspect of TV. Missed this week’s White Lotus? No problem! You have Monday through Saturday to catch up at your leisure. It may feel good to set your own pace, however the tradeoff is that you are less connected with other viewers.
The sense of community brought on by monoculture encourages viewers to step out of their comfort zone and watch something they otherwise wouldn’t have watched.
The most recent watercooler moment in television I can think of is Peacock’s Love Island USA Season 7. The show, which became massively successful due to TikTok, was an internet sensation, bringing in tens of millions of viewers as a result of its social media impact. I originally had no interest in watching the show, but ultimately caved to participate in the cultural conversation. The week that islander Huda Mustafa dubbed the new bombshell Iris Kendall an “escape goat” before curling into a ball and crying on the floor whilst her ex-talking stage disparaged her to his friends, I remember being more entertained by the mass public discourse due to the episode than the episode itself. The show reportedly accrued around 1.93 billion viewing minutes in its final week, a statistic that is comparable to the 11.9 million Gen X and millennial viewers who tuned in for the final episode of The Sopranos (Tony Soprano was their Huda!). I likely would not have chosen to watch Love Island had it not been as popular as it was, but by doing so, my media norms were challenged and the experience diversified my viewing habits. The sense of community brought on by monoculture encourages viewers to step out of their comfort zone and watch something they otherwise wouldn’t have watched. As our algorithms continue to promote programs that are specially suited to our own niche likes and interests, it is becoming increasingly necessary to have viewing experiences that allow us to confront and understand a different perspective.
The lack of monoculture is not targeting television exclusively. Any aspect of culture can be and likely already has been fragmented. Everything we see is chosen by our algorithm to elicit a reaction, creating a positive feedback loop of content tailored to our own increasingly niche interests. Unless monoculture is reintroduced, should we continue on the path we are on, the future of media could become so personalized that we become trapped in an echo chamber of our own viewing preferences. In a world where everything is hyper-personal, there will no longer be any aspect of culture that unifies us.
