2 ms·

I think of it more as a basis for shared culture - I could chat about Seinfeld / Friends, and odds were high that the other person would know what I was talking

I think of it more as a basis for shared culture - I could chat about Seinfeld / Friends, and odds were high that the other person would know what I was talking about. I imagine in prior ages this was perhaps more about folks reading a core collection of books. I expect there was less shared culture than in ^ Now it seems like we're in an era with (potentially) less of a shared cultural bases than either of those times. I've certainly met people where there's really no overlap - their core beliefs, values, etc - fundamentally different foundations. If that becomes more widespread, it's hard to know what that will do to our societies.

hnlmorg 2mo ago
The thing is, people I’m friends and thus likeminded, we watch the same shows and still have those kinds of conversations. And people I wasn’t likeminded with never used to watch the same shows, even pre-streaming era, so I’d never had those conversations. Take your examples, Friends and Frasier were aired at roughly the same time in the UK (obviously on competing stations). Most people watched Friends, but that show wasn’t really my thing. So I watched Frasier. As did my closest friends. And we’d chat about that. But I couldn’t join in with work colleagues with Friends chats. It’s a bit like sports matches. People at work will talk about football/soccer but I’d be more interested in Snooker. So I’d chat snooker with friends and duck out of the football work chat.
deleted 2mo ago
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