Pop culture has become an oligopoly
This puts its finger on something I’ve had a vague feeling about for awhile now.<p>Something I noticed was that being “underground” and “alternative” was considered “cool” when I was a youngster. Now, it seems all transgressive elements have been stripped from the mix and it’s all about “please like me, like my product, I’m desperate for your approval”<p>I’d had my own notions of this being fueled by the suit-vs-rocker dichotomy turning into the self-promoting-artist lonesome internet point of light thing.<p>But this article describes a bigger pattern, and I think it’s largely about commercial conquest and has little to do with the ideas inside.<p>There’s also the theme of nostalgia and “good old” style marketing.
How much junk food is marketed as “grandmas good olde traditional natural authentic junk food”?<p>What is extremely frustrating is watching mediocre output be considered best in class merely due to the rubber stamp effect of popularity, popularity due to marketing power and branding.<p>Clearly xyz charttopper is the best singer in the  world if they are the most popular, right?<p>The entertainment oligopoly falsifying the appearance of democracy and choice while limiting the range of presentable choices is actually symbolic of how many authoritarian systems fake democratic parliamentary procedures and such.<p>Clearly the people have spoken, approving the pre approved choice. Lol.<p>Everyone must obviously love autotune if 9/10 top ten songs use it.