Dear reader,
Lately I've been feeling a subtle yet persistent feeling of disconnection when talking to other people, especially people I've just met: it's a kind of difficulty in establishing a common ground on which to communicate, like two wavelengths being imperceptibly out-of-phase with each other. It's not a distance so great that makes communication impossible; but it's a distinct feeling and it makes me feel like something is lost in the way of communication.
I've decided to write this post because I discovered that I am not the only one to have this feeling; it is common enough that, in the Anglosphere, it was given a name: they call it the "death of the monoculture".
The monoculture, in the context of pop culture, refers to an era when a handful of widely consumed media dominated the public consciousness. It was a time when nearly everyone watched the same TV shows or movies, and listened to the same hit songs: this shared cultural framework created a sense of belonging and gave people common reference points for discussion, humor, and connection.
More than just entertainment, the monoculture influenced real life in ways that helped define entire decades. When everyone consumed the same media, it created large-scale trends that shaped fashion, slang, and even political discourse. The 1960s had its countercultural revolution, the 1980s had its neon excess, and the 1990s had its grunge aesthetic: the monoculture helped solidify the feeling of a "decade" as something with a distinct identity, marked by common reference points and cultural moments that everyone could recall.
But in recent years, there is a lingering feeling that this sense of cultural cohesion has faded, and much of this change is instinctively attributed to the internet. One of the key reasons for this shift is the unprecedented access to media that the internet provides. In the past, people were limited by what was available on television, the radio, or in movie theaters and music shops. Now, streaming platforms, social media, and digital distribution have made it possible for individuals to curate their own entertainment experiences: instead of a few dominant cultural forces dictating trends, countless niche communities have formed. The internet has fractured the cultural landscape, allowing people to consume content tailored to their personal tastes rather than engaging with the same mass media as everyone else.
This shift has been further exacerbated by the combination of overproduction and the rise of recommendation algorithms. The sheer volume of content produced today is staggering. No longer are people bound by a limited selection of media; instead, they are overwhelmed by an endless supply of options. To navigate this abundance, personalized recommendation algorithms have become the primary means of content discovery.
These algorithms operate on the premise of tailoring content to individual preferences, ensuring that users see what aligns with their interests. However, in practice, they do more than just personalize recommendations: they actively shape a person’s media experience by promoting some content while obscuring others. This selective exposure reinforces specific tastes and perspectives, gradually guiding individuals down increasingly specialized cultural pathways. As a result, each person develops a distinct media landscape, making shared cultural touchpoints rarer and leading to a growing divergence in how we engage with and interpret the world around us.
The extreme consequence of this is that each of us develops a cultural background that is unique and rarely overlaps with others. Instead of broad, unifying cultural moments, we now exist in fragmented cultural ecosystems, each tailored to our specific interests and habits. While this has led to more diversity in media consumption, it has also diminished the common cultural currency that once helped people connect effortlessly. The monoculture has not just declined: it has been replaced by a landscape where no two people share exactly the same cultural experience.
This poses a subtle yet dangerous problem, because the way we interpret the world is shaped by the stories, myths, and cultural narratives we consume. These stories don’t just entertain us; they provide the categories through which we understand reality. Concepts like heroism, justice, love, or success are not universal absolutes but are filtered through the cultural background in which we are immersed. When two people come from vastly different cultural contexts, they may use similar words but attach different meanings to them, leading to misunderstanding.
For example, consider the concept of "honor." In a Western cultural framework, honor might be associated with personal integrity or individual moral principles, shaped by narratives of lone heroes standing up for what’s right. In some Eastern traditions, honor might be more tied to duty, family, or societal expectations, as seen in samurai or Confucian ethics. If two people from these different backgrounds discuss what it means to act "honorably," they may struggle to find common ground because they are drawing from different cultural narratives that assign distinct meanings to the same concept.
This is similar to the challenges of translating literature from one language to another, especially across different time periods or cultural contexts. Words can be translated literally, but the deeper meaning (rooted in cultural assumptions, historical experiences, and collective memory) often gets lost or distorted. A perfect example is how humor or poetry often loses its essence when translated, because it relies on references, idioms, and a shared cultural bedrock that may not exist in another language.
Of course, this is an extreme scenario meant to illustrate the point. We are not at risk of becoming completely incapable of understanding one another. However, the dispersion of personal cultural paths does introduce new challenges to communication. Shared cultural references make dialogue smoother, providing a foundation of common ground where ideas can be exchanged more efficiently. As our individual cultural landscapes become more distinct, we may not lose the ability to communicate, but we will likely find it more difficult to engage in effortless, spontaneous, and deeply resonant conversations with those outside our immediate cultural spheres.
However, as much as I have blamed this fragmentation on the internet, it also has the potential to mitigate the problem. The internet allows us to connect with people far beyond our immediate surroundings, making it possible to find communities that share our interests. This can help us regain some of the common ground that has been lost while also enabling us to explore niche interests that would have been inaccessible in pre-internet days, when our cultural exposure was largely determined by what was physically available to us.
That said, it is no longer enough to expect cultural links to form passively. If we want to maintain meaningful connections, we must actively seek them out. This means engaging with communities that share our cultural references, even if they are geographically distant, and fostering discussions that bridge the gaps between our fragmented experiences. Rather than lamenting the loss of the monoculture, we can use the tools available to us to create intentional cultural spaces that allow for deeper, meaningful exchanges.
Vale,
Davide