Platforms like YouTube (2005), TikTok (2016), and Instagram Reels have democratized production. Today, a teenager in their bedroom can create popular media that reaches a billion people. This has birthed the "creator economy," where the line between professional and amateur is meaningless.
Before the internet, popular media was curated by a handful of powerful gatekeepers. Hollywood studios, major television networks (ABC, NBC, CBS), and publishing houses decided what the public would see, hear, and read.
Netflix shifted from a DVD-by-mail service to a streaming behemoth, followed by Hulu, Amazon Prime, and later Disney+, Apple TV+, and Max. The result? "Peak TV"—over 500 scripted series in a single year. Popular media shifted from scarcity to overwhelming abundance. Key changes include:
Introduce a character, let's call her Mia, who is known on Tinder for her witty responses and an impressive collection of puns in her bio. Mia, intrigued by the challenge, decides to meet her matches in unusual, public settings to see if their real-life interactions can live up to their online banter.
Few people watch a show without their phone. Ironically, entertainment content is often consumed while the audience simultaneously engages with popular media about that content (Twitter live-tweets, Reddit fan theories, Instagram spoilers). The show is no longer the primary product; the discussion is.