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3 hours ago
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Name: The Oscars selfie.
Age: Once upon a time (2 March 2014, to be precise), at the Oscars, the actor Bradley Cooper, who was nominated for best supporting actor, took a selfie with the host, Ellen DeGeneres, and a whole load of A-listers …
Remind me who featured. Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Lupita Nyong’o, Jennifer Lawrence.
Ah yes, a stellar lineup! But, back to the question of age: so the Oscars selfie is 12 years old? Correct.
And we’re talking about it now because … according to a recent essay in the Hollywood Reporter, this selfie represented the beginning of the end for monoculture.
In farming? No, not in farming. Monoculture as in a shared popular culture, a cultural moment dominated by one single element.
Everyone huddling around the TV to watch the Apollo 11 moon landing, or the wedding of Charles and Diana, or the finale of Friends – that sort of thing? Bingo, when everyone had fewer channels on TV. Though all of those examples pre-date the social media age, unlike the Oscars selfie, which arrived at a time when social media platforms were in their ascendancy and broadcast audiences (in the US, at least) for award shows were still pretty strong.
OK, give me some numbers to back this up. The TV audience for the Oscars in 2014 was 43.74 million …
And now? It has sunk to about 18 million. That’s only half the story, though. The Oscars selfie was posted on DeGeneres’ Twitter account, and the tweet was retweeted more than any tweet had ever been retweeted before.
Everyone saw it, in other words? The show, the tweet – everyone saw. Hence the argument that the whole of 2014 – and the Oscars selfie in particular – represents the peak of monoculture.
What happened afterwards? Choice. The explosion of streaming platforms for music and filmed media. Just last year, Netflix alone released 597 new originals. Now you’ve also got Disney+, Apple TV, Prime Video and HBO. Not to mention YouTube and TikTok, which occupy so much of our media time.
Anything else? Well, the pandemic in the 2020s also caused a sharp decline in shared spaces and experiences, both literal and in terms of media consumption. Not to mention the rise of algorithmic scrolling that personalises the content we consume.
Net result: popular culture shatters into a billion pieces, like a Ming vase dropped from a height on to concrete. If you like. Certainly we’re unlikely to get 40 million watching an awards ceremony, then sharing a star-studded selfie from the event.
What is there to talk about at the water cooler? Exactly!
Do say: “Mmm, isn’t this water lovely and cool?”
Don’t say: “Sorry, can’t talk. I’m too busy scrolling through never-ending content tailored to my own algorithm, and probably generated by AI …”
