> The lack of shared culture[2] today means people have less in common. It seems to me that having less in common with people makes them more distant and that t

> The lack of shared culture[2] today means people have less in common. It seems to me that having less in common with people makes them more distant and that there could be negative effects of that. This is something that we need to adapt to, and I think it's quite possible to adapt to it. For example, when I was a teenager, a good chunk of my friends and schoolmates listened to the same bands as I did, or at least there was a substantial overlap. I was much too young for the heyday of MTV, but the big names pushed by the record companies were still ones everyone knew and had opinions about, and only occasionally would we introduce each other to our personal discoveries. Nowadays, with the friends I've made over the past few years, there's usually little or no overlap. So the inevitable 'what kind of music do you listen to?' has changed from 'oh, I like X too! / I don't like X because Y' to a different exercise where you need to communicate why you're really into a certain ukulele youtuber or a Chinese operetta or a Brazilian hip-hop subgenre, to someone who's never heard of them. And then listening and asking interesting questions when they do the same for their favourites. The rare times you do find some overlaps become pleasant surprises - one of my best friends is into blackgaze and ambient, I'm a folk- and metal-head, and finding out that we had a few experimental/avantgarde bands like Unexpect and Deathspell Omega in both our playlists was delightful when we first met.