Shallowfication Shifts Cultures

Human culture has always been a layered tapestry, woven from inherited traditions and individual innovations. Imagine our early ancestors gathered around a campfire, passing down stories, songs, and rituals – each storyteller adding a personal twist while honoring what came before. Culture is emergent and negotiated: every generation inherits beliefs and practices, yet also reshapes them with its own creativity and agency. Anthropologist Clifford Geertz famously described culture as “webs of significance” man himself has spun – a dynamic interplay between structure and spontaneity. In other words, we are born into cultural narratives but we aren’t passive characters in them; through our choices and expressions, we continually rewrite the script.

Fast forward to today, and the “campfire” has been replaced by the glow of our screens. Marshall McLuhan’s adage that “we shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us” comes to mind . The digital platforms we’ve created – from social media feeds to meme factories – are now powerful shapers of how culture is expressed and evolves. In the past, cultural change moved at the pace of storytellers and letter-writers; now it hurtles forward on the backs of viral videos and trending hashtags. A joke or dance invented in one corner of the world can become a global phenomenon overnight, while a tradition centuries old might struggle to compete for attention. Yet, just as in ancient times, there’s a push and pull: even in this whirlwind of short-form content and rapid engagement, people find ways to preserve depth, reclaim meaning, and assert their identities. The following sections explore this complex landscape – how our age of TikTok and Twitter is transforming generational relations, regional identities, rituals, civic life, subcultures, and the very cohesion of culture itself.

Generational Crossroads: Analog Nostalgia in a Digital World Link to heading

Consider the stark contrast: grandparents might be on Facebook sharing long posts or chain emails (often to the eye-rolls of their grandkids), while Gen Z communicates in looping 7-second videos packed with in-jokes, emoji, and blink-and-you-miss-it references. The younger generation has grown up swimming in the fast currents of the internet, where trends rise and fall weekly and attention spans are measured in clicks. This has made them incredibly adept at cultural remixing – they can take a snippet of a 1980s song, a line from a Marvel movie, and a current news meme, and mash it into a new viral TikTok that somehow makes sense. Older generations, in contrast, often approach digital culture more cautiously, treating online content a bit more like traditional media – something to read or watch, often in a literal way – which is partly why Aunt Mary might earnestly reshare that obviously satirical article, not realizing it was a joke.

Yet, in a twist, Gen Z is not purely speeding ahead without looking back. In fact, digital natives have developed a curious nostalgia for the analog past. Trend reports note that Gen Z and young Millennials are reviving technologies from before they were born: vinyl records, Polaroid and point-and-shoot film cameras, and even the humble flip phone. What might seem like outdated gadgets to their Gen X parents are coveted by today’s teens. Why? In a world of infinite scrolling and constant pings, there’s a charm in the tactile and the unplugged. Flip phones, for instance, are being adopted as a way to escape the bombardment of notifications and social media – a “less overwhelming option” to remain reachable without falling into endless apps . As one report describes, a lot of Gen Z is “tired of the overstimulation” of smartphones and finds relief in the slower, deliberate experience of using a flip phone (you might actually talk or text T9 slowly, rather than doom-scroll) . Likewise, vinyl records have surged in popularity among youth, not just for their warm sound but as a ritual: physically browsing a record store, handling a turntable, appreciating album art – these offer a depth of experience that Spotify’s quick selects can’t match. Indeed, vinyl sales in the U.S. have hit their highest in decades as young listeners build trendy record collections, relishing the richer audio and vintage vibe . Ironically, it’s the digital sphere (YouTube, TikTok, etc.) that introduced many of these kids to old mediums in the first place – a TikTok video of a Walkman can spark a teen’s fascination with cassettes. Gen Z is simultaneously accelerating cultural change and reviving analog traditions, blurring the line between forward motion and retro revival.

Older generations, for their part, are also adapting – some Boomers have taken to Zoom calls and online hobby groups, discovering new facets of culture (like joining a Facebook group for 1960s rock memorabilia trading). But they often emphasize continuity: keeping family recipes alive via emailed Word documents or sharing scanned old photos in WhatsApp chats with the grandkids. In families and communities, this creates an interesting dynamic: the youth bring the new (teaching grandma how to use slang GIFs), while elders bring the context (telling the real story behind that heirloom or holiday). The result is that cultural patterns today are a mishmash of throwbacks and innovations. A Gen Z college student might one day be doing a viral TikTok dance in an ironic vintage outfit, and the next day sitting with her mom learning a traditional sewing technique to upcycle thrift clothes. In short, the generational divide – often painted as “deep vs shallow” – is more of a dialogue. Young people crave some of the depth their elders cherish, even as they speed up the pace of change, and older folks (willing or not) are pulled into the digital currents. Culture emerges from this interplay, with digital nostalgia becoming a bridge: a way for the young to experience a semblance of the past (however curated or commodified) and for the old to see their past valued anew.

Global Connections and Digital Diaspora: Preserving Identity vs. Homogenization Link to heading

The internet famously collapsed distances, turning the world into what McLuhan called a “global village.” In this village, cultural patterns no longer stay isolated in one region – they flow across borders on fiber-optic cables. A teenager in Nigeria and a teenager in Norway might laugh at the same TikTok joke or hum along to the same K-pop chorus. Diasporic communities, who once could only preserve their heritage through memory and occasional letters, now have a rich digital lifeline to the homeland. A young man from the Indian diaspora in the U.S., for example, can join a Facebook group or YouTube channel to practice his Telugu language, share memes about strict aunties that only fellow South Asians would get, and watch live-streams of festivals back in his parents’ village – all in a single afternoon. These platforms provide what one scholar calls “digital togetherness, where diasporic experiences are shared and negotiated” across time zones . Social media has mitigated the physical distance, allowing migrant families to stay in daily contact and even enabling cultural revival. A striking example comes from the Welsh diaspora in Argentina: 150 years after Welsh settlers arrived in Patagonia, they’ve managed to keep alive a version of the Welsh language and even resurrect an old Welsh cultural festival (the Eisteddfod) in South America – a feat that, as one digital anthropologist notes, was highly likely aided by the internet’s capacity to connect and organize far-flung communities . In countless similar ways, WhatsApp groups, Facebook pages, and community forums act as modern-day cultural custodians, helping diasporic peoples preserve traditional recipes, songs, and stories no matter where they now live.

The Algorithm’s Appetite for Outrage Link to heading

However, the global village can feel like a double-edged sword. Alongside this empowering preservation runs an undercurrent of cultural dilution or homogenization. The same networks that allow a Maori community to teach its language via Zoom can also flood that community’s youth with an endless feed of Hollywood and Bollywood content, potentially eclipsing local arts. We see pop culture converging globally: the Spotify top charts or viral Netflix shows create a kind of worldwide monoculture, where certain fashions, dances, or slang phrases become near-universal. The virality of memes and challenges means local quirks can be subsumed by whatever is trending on the global stage. For instance, when the “Wednesday Dance” from the Netflix series Wednesday exploded on TikTok in late 2022, millions around the world from New York to New Delhi were imitating actress Jenna Ortega’s quirky goth dance moves . It was a moment of global shared culture – fun and unifying in its way – but it also illustrated how a single piece of media can temporarily overshadow local traditions. While everyone was busy perfecting Wednesday’s dance, time and attention for, say, regional folk dances or classical routines waned. As one commentator observed, “the nuanced movements and rhythms that had evolved over generations in different cultures were temporarily overshadowed by a single, globally trending routine” . In other words, the algorithm doesn’t always have a wide palate; it often feeds us what’s already popular, creating a feedback loop that privileges the loudest, most broadly appealing content.

This raises a tension for regional and diasporic cultures: how to stand out and survive in the midst of a roaring global stream. Some worry about a creeping homogenization – a world where a village in Kenya and a suburb in Canada end up consuming the same music, wearing the same fashion brands, using the same Facebook reaction emojis, and speaking a kind of flattened hybrid of English internet slang. Indeed, AI-driven content recommendation can unintentionally propagate Western-centric perspectives and values to global audiences, since many algorithms are trained on English data . In response, there’s a push for digital preservation efforts: online archives of indigenous languages, Instagram pages dedicated to local history, or TikTok creators teaching viewers about their heritage attire or dances. These are conscious attempts to use the master’s tools (social platforms) to defend and disseminate cultural uniqueness rather than erase it. A fascinating micro-example: on TikTok, alongside the viral dances, you will find Native American creators showcasing powwow regalia and dances, gaining millions of views and educating global audiences about their culture. Likewise, diaspora youth have started podcasts and YouTube channels to interview their elders about traditions – effectively creating a digital time capsule for future generations.

The global village thus contains multitudes: it’s at once a bazaar of cultural exchange and a potential blender of cultural specifics. A meme born in one culture can spread laughter worldwide (cross-cultural pollination), but global memes can also water down local humor and context. The key seems to lie in balance and intentionality. As much as young people in one country relish the global memes, many also express a stronger interest in their roots because the internet exposed them to it in new ways (e.g., a Korean-American teen learning a traditional recipe from a YouTube channel her grandmother recommended). Rather than a zero-sum game, we’re seeing a spectrum: on one end, a kind of cosmopolitan mash-up culture where nationality matters less, and on the other, a resurgence of micro-identities proudly displayed online. Ultimately, the question for regional and diasporic identities in the digital age is how to remain distinct without becoming siloed – to let the world hear your drumbeat without having it drowned out by the global pop playlist.

Remixing Rituals: Tradition in the Digital Arena Link to heading

Not even our most sacred or communal rituals have been untouched by the influence of short-form, always-online culture. Throughout history, rituals – from religious ceremonies to communal festivals – were anchored in physical presence and local community. They provided a sense of continuity, a link to ancestors, and a collective focus of meaning. Today, many of these practices are being reshaped, broadcast, or even commercialized for digital audiences. In some cases, this adaptation has allowed traditions to survive or even expand their reach; in others, it threatens to hollow out their significance, turning meaningful rites into just another piece of content.

Consider how the COVID-19 pandemic forced a massive experiment in virtual ritual. Churches, temples, and mosques around the world started live-streaming services when people couldn’t gather in person. Suddenly, attending a ritual didn’t necessarily mean being physically there – you could pray via Zoom, take part in a Seder over Skype, or witness a wedding on Facebook Live. In many ways, this was a remarkable adaptation: rather than cancel age-old traditions, communities used digital tools to uphold them. There were creative workarounds – drive-through graduations, emoji-filled “amen” comments during live-streamed sermons, and even an Instagram filter for Ash Wednesday that placed a digital ash cross on believers’ foreheads in lieu of the usual in-person anointing. People found that some elements of ritual could translate online, and doing so kept communities connected through trying times.

Yet, even as we celebrate the resilience of traditions, we must ask: what gets lost in translation? Many who participated in these online rituals noted an intangible absence – the atmosphere, the sensory fullness (the smell of incense, the sound of many voices singing in a hall), the personal interactions before and after – all the small details that make a ritual experience fully human. A live-streamed holiday dinner is not the same as hugging your cousins around the table. As one might say, the form changed, and with it, some of the meaning risked thinning out. Neil Postman, in Amusing Ourselves to Death, warned that when serious cultural conversations or practices are turned into media spectacles, they can lose their depth. He quipped that “Americans no longer talk to each other, they entertain each other. They do not exchange ideas; they exchange images” . Translate that to rituals: we risk moving from genuine participation to performative display – exchanging meaningful communal acts for Instagram images. It’s one thing to attend a religious service to seek spiritual nourishment; it’s another to do so just long enough to grab a selfie for the likes.

In fact, on social media we often see communal practices becoming content. Take weddings: once intimate family affairs, they’ve become Instagram extravaganzas for some, complete with choreographed dances meant to go viral on YouTube. The ritual of marriage is sometimes upstaged by the representation of the ritual. Guy Debord’s observation that “all that was once directly lived has become mere representation” rings eerily true as we watch a sacred vow exchange get edited into a TikTok montage. Similarly, consider cultural festivals. Holi, the vibrant Indian festival of colors, is a deeply symbolic celebration of spring and community bonding. It has also become an influencer favorite – photos of people covered in rainbow powders flood social media every year. On one hand, this spreads awareness and appreciation of Holi globally; on the other, removed from its cultural context, it risks becoming just a colorful photo-op for people with no connection to its meaning. The line between adaptation and commercialization blurs: is a non-Indian influencer hosting a Holi-themed dance party spreading culture or appropriating it for clicks? The answers aren’t always clear-cut.

To be sure, not all digital adaptations are negative. Some traditions have been given new life by online exposure. For example, day-to-day rituals like journaling, meditation, or craft-making have found large audiences on platforms like YouTube and TikTok, where creators share these practices and encourage others to incorporate them. A trend like the “morning routine” videos – which often include stretching, making tea mindfully, writing gratitude lists – is essentially promoting ritualization of everyday life for wellness, a kind of secular ritual renaissance among young people. Even something as simple as the way gamers gather on Twitch at the same time every week to collectively watch and comment on a speedrun can be seen as a new form of communal ritual (complete with its own chants/emotes and sense of belonging).

The real concern is erosion of meaning: when rituals are shortened, hashtagged, and monetized, do they still transform the participant in the same way? There’s a difference between witnessing a live-streamed religious ceremony and being one of the congregants in the pews. The former is more passive – and in the scrollable context of social media, it competes with distractions one swipe away. The latter is immersive. Thus, communities face the challenge of how to harness the connective power of digital media without letting the deeper purpose of their rituals slip away. Some have responded by creating hybrid models – encouraging people to do some preparation offline, or hosting smaller in-person gatherings that complement the online broadcast. Others leverage digital platforms to educate about the ritual’s significance in advance, so that those who join virtually understand the gravity of what they’re seeing.

In essence, rituals are being remixed. A YouTube video might turn a complex initiation ceremony into a 10-minute explainer; an influencer might distill the essence of Ramadan or Lent into a series of daily Instagram stories. These can be wonderfully accessible introductions to traditions for outsiders or younger generations. The risk is if we stop at the introduction and never go deeper. As with so much of digital culture, there’s a shallow end and a deep end. The shallow end lets millions see a tradition (which in earlier eras they might never have encountered at all), and that visibility can foster respect or curiosity. But to truly feel the tradition – to let it shape values and identity – one might still need to wade into the deep end, which usually lies beyond the screen. The hope is that digital media can serve as a gateway rather than a final destination: sparking interest that leads people to engage more meaningfully, whether that means attending a local cultural event, seeking out a mentor, or simply practicing a ritual in their own quiet space with the phone turned off.

Activism and Civic Culture: Hashtags, Spectacle, and Reality Link to heading

In the arena of activism and civic engagement, the digital revolution has been both galvanizing and perplexing. On one hand, it has never been easier for an ordinary person to raise awareness about a cause – a single tweet or YouTube video can ignite a global movement. On the other hand, this ease of sharing has given rise to what critics call “slacktivism” (slacker + activism) or performative activism: symbolic online gestures that often fizzle before producing real-world change. The cultural pattern of protest and civic participation has shifted dramatically in the age of short-form media, yielding both explosive mobilizations and rapid dissipations.

Let’s recall some high-profile examples. In 2012, the Kony 2012 campaign swept the internet. A well-produced 30-minute video about Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony went viral, garnering over 100 million views. Millions of people, many of them youth who had never been politically active, pledged support by sharing the hashtag ##Kony2012 and buying kits to “cover the night” with Kony posters. For a brief moment, it felt like a global uprising was at hand – all driven by social media. And then… almost as quickly, the momentum vanished. The night of action saw far fewer participants than anticipated; the movement collapsed under critical scrutiny and the personal breakdown of its leader. Kony was never captured. Time magazine later dubbed it “the poster child for slacktivism”, illustrating how massive online attention didn’t translate into sustained effort or tangible outcomes . The pattern has repeated in various forms: a surge of online interest, declarations that “this changes everything,” followed by a steep drop-off as the collective hive mind moves on to the next trending issue.

However, it would be a mistake to dismiss digital activism as always shallow. In many cases, online engagement has been the spark for offline action – or an amplifier of voices that were long ignored. The ##MeToo movement is a case in point. What began as a hashtag where women shared their experiences of harassment and assault quickly exploded into a worldwide reckoning, toppling powerful figures from Hollywood to government and leading to real policy changes in workplaces. Here, the brevity of the hashtag belied the depth of pain and urgency behind it, and social media provided a platform for collective storytelling that traditional media or institutions had suppressed. Similarly, the Black Lives Matter hashtag, first used in 2013, helped catalyze one of the largest protest movements in American history by 2020. Those protests – people in the streets for weeks – were mobilized in no small part by Twitter threads, Facebook events, and viral videos that made injustice impossible to ignore. In these cases, digital culture acted as a civic accelerant: what might have taken months or years to organize through pamphlets and meetings in earlier eras coalesced in days via posts and shares.

The crucial difference between movements that fade and those that endure seems to lie in whether online actions are coupled with on-the-ground organization and clear goals. A catchy hashtag alone is like a spark flaring up – bright but ephemeral. To keep the flame, it needs the fuel of community organizing, leadership, and sometimes old-fashioned political work (like lobbying or forming coalitions). When the substance is lacking, activism risks becoming another form of social media performance – a spectacle rather than a sustained struggle. We saw a wave of black squares on Instagram in June 2020, when millions posted a plain black image to signal support for racial justice. It was a powerful visual statement of solidarity; yet, critics noted, some people treated that post as the end of their engagement (“I did my part, I posted my square!”) rather than the beginning. The ease of performing virtue online can create a false sense of accomplishment. As psychologist Daniel Kahneman might frame it, our fast, emotional thinking (what he calls System 1) loves the quick gratification of clicking “like” on a charity post or retweeting a protest slogan – it feels like doing something. Our slow, deliberative thinking (System 2) – the part that handles complex planning like actually attending a rally or donating time and money to a cause – is often not invoked with the same frequency .

Media theorists have long been wary of this slide toward performative gesture. Back in the 1960s, Guy Debord critiqued a society where social relationships were being replaced by images and appearances. He wrote, “All that was once directly lived has become mere representation,” meaning that authentic lived experiences (including perhaps the experience of resistance or solidarity) risk turning into things we merely watch or display . In the context of activism, one might say activism itself can become a spectacle – something people perform publicly for social clout, rather than a genuine effort aimed at change. Neil Postman, observing how television turned public affairs into entertainment, warned that if we become an audience rather than a citizenry, “a nation finds itself at risk; culture-death is a clear possibility.” In the age of TikTok and Twitter, the “vaudeville act” of public business Postman described might be a viral stunt or a pithy clapback tweet. They draw cheers and likes, but do they solve anything?

All that said, digital-native activism has shown it can mature. There’s evidence that youth who engage in online activism often carry that energy offline as well – one study found that far from being either/or, online engagement actually correlated with higher offline political participation among young people . The Parkland teen activists (against gun violence) exemplified this: they started with viral tweets and Instagram posts during a traumatic event, then organized the massive March for Our Lives in 2018, bridging the digital and physical realms masterfully. Similarly, activists in authoritarian countries have used short-form media in highly savvy ways to outmaneuver state censors and galvanize international support, all while risking their lives on the ground. The Hong Kong pro-democracy protests, for instance, were partly coordinated via Telegram and had savvy social media outreach to global audiences – they sustained over time because there was real commitment behind the hashtags.

We also see the phenomenon of “hashtag-to-law” – cases where an online movement directly leads to legal or policy changes. The viral outcry in 2020 over police violence (amplified by graphic videos on social media) forced local governments to introduce police reforms and even led to the removal of certain officials. Environmental campaigns like ##FridaysForFuture (inspired by Greta Thunberg’s school strikes, which themselves went viral) have kept climate policy on the radar, and some cities and institutions responded with climate emergency declarations. These suggest that digital culture, when harnessed with clear intent, can shorten the feedback loop between public sentiment and political action.

Nonetheless, a lot of digital activism does remain ephemeral – trending today, forgotten tomorrow. The attention economy’s demand for new content can make even serious activists constantly repackage their message to keep it fresh (today a meme, tomorrow a dance challenge) or risk losing the public’s attention. Activist subcultures online have become adept at humor and irony to keep people engaged (think of the proliferation of political memes), effectively mixing civic culture with meme culture. This can lower barriers to entry – it’s easier to share a witty meme about income inequality than to read a dense policy brief – but it also risks trivializing the issue. Activism, like culture itself, is walking a tightrope in the digital age: how to leverage the incredible reach and speed of online networks without succumbing to the shallowness and fickleness those networks sometimes encourage.

Memes, Micro-Tribes, and the Rise of Digital Folk Cultures Link to heading

One of the most fascinating aspects of our hyper-connected cultural landscape is the emergence of micro-communities and subcultures that thrive online. In the past, subcultures – whether punk rockers, goths, or Trekkies – took effort to find and tended to be geographically localized pockets in big cities or around certain venues. Now, thanks to the internet, any niche interest or aesthetic can blossom into a full-fledged community, no matter how esoteric, as long as there are a few like-minded netizens out there. From Reddit forums to Discord servers to TikTok niches, these groups form their own identities, languages (often in the form of inside jokes or memes), and values. They are the digital folk cultures of our time – some fleeting as a trending hashtag, others surprisingly enduring and rich.

Memes themselves are a kind of cultural lingua franca. Richard Dawkins coined “meme” in 1976 to describe how ideas replicate, but the internet gave memes new meaning: images or phrases that mutate and spread at lightning speed across the web. Today, memes are more than just jokes; they’re carriers of cultural references and creators of in-jokes that bind subcultures together. A meme community – say fans of the “distracted boyfriend” meme format – will remix one template endlessly to comment on everything from politics to pop culture to their personal lives. Participating in meme-sharing is a bit like contributing to an oral tradition or a collective folk song, except in visual, bite-sized form. These acts of shared humor build a sense of identity. If you “get” a certain meme, you’re part of the tribe. Anthropologically speaking, memes are a new form of folklore – instead of proverbs or tall tales, we have stock photo images with Impact font captions. It might sound trivial, but consider how memes have transcended cultural barriers and even political borders. A clever Spongebob meme might be understood by young adults in dozens of countries, regardless of language, because it taps into a common pop cultural well. In that sense, memes create a micro culture that is oddly global and local at the same time: global in reach, but local to internet-savvy people or a particular fandom.

Beyond memes, there are numerous micro-tribes flourishing. For example, the aesthetic movement of “Cottagecore” took off on Tumblr and later TikTok – a subculture idealizing a quaint, rural, cozy lifestyle (think baking bread, floral dresses, rustic cottages). Millions of young people, especially during the pandemic, gravitated to this as both an escapist fantasy and a real lifestyle inspiration. They formed a subculture with its own fashion, music (folk and indie), values (simplicity, nature, nostalgia), and online gathering spots to share photos and tips. What’s interesting is that Cottagecore, like many digital subcultures, is polymedia – it exists through shared images on Instagram, short videos on TikTok, Etsy shops selling handcrafted items, and so on. It’s part aesthetic trend, part genuine community. Will it last decades? Maybe not in the same form, but some participants carry elements of it into their real lives (gardening, thrift shopping, etc.), and they may evolve into the next variant (perhaps “Grandmacore” or something – yes, that’s a thing too!).

Other subcultures have proven quite lasting thanks to the net. The furry fandom (people interested in anthropomorphic animal characters) was around before the internet, but it exploded online and is now a large, self-sustaining subculture with conventions and an economy of its own. Cosplay communities, K-pop stans, urban explorers, minimalists, survivalist preppers, cryptocurrency enthusiasts, slam poets – you name it, there’s an online subculture. Each of these groups shares content internally (which often only makes sense if you’re in the know) – essentially generating modern folklore and a sense of “us.” Meme communities like the subreddit r/WallStreetBets even showed they can have real-world impact – remember when a bunch of online meme traders sent GameStop stock “to the moon” in 2021, rattling Wall Street? That was a subculture (of irreverent, risk-taking retail investors) flexing its collective muscle, coordinated largely through memes and slogans (“diamond hands 💎🙌”). While that example is unusual, it underscores that some digital subcultures have matured into forces that can poke the mainstream.

We should distinguish between fleeting fads and lasting folk culture in the digital realm. A fleeting fad might be something like the Harlem Shake videos or the “Ice Bucket Challenge” – hugely popular for a few weeks, then mostly gone (though the Ice Bucket Challenge, notably, left a legacy in charitable funds raised and even research breakthrough). Lasting digital folk culture is more like the community that built around a famous meme or a shared passion and continues year after year, even if quieter. Take the meme “Pepe the Frog”: it began as a harmless comic character, became an all-purpose meme, then got co-opted by unsavory political groups, then was re-co-opted by Hong Kong protesters as a symbol of freedom. Over more than a decade, Pepe has been a folklore figure of sorts, his meaning changing with each subculture that adopts him. Or consider how Minecraft (a game) isn’t just a game – it spawned role-playing communities, YouTubers with millions of followers, in-game creators who are revered like master craftsmen, and even educational subcultures (teachers using it for classes). What started as a piece of entertainment became a cultural platform generating stories, heroes, and legends (the infamous “Herobrine” urban legend in Minecraft is pure digital folklore).

Humor, irony, and aesthetics play a huge role in shaping these identities. Online, irony is the coin of the realm – many subcultures communicate in layers of irony (sincere about being insincere, or vice versa). Gen Z in particular is noted for a rather absurdist, meta humor in their memes (like memes that are deliberately low-quality or bizarre – e.g., deep-fried memes, or the goofy “E” meme with Mark Zuckerberg’s face, which mean nothing and everything at once). This shared sense of humor becomes a badge of belonging. If you laugh at the absurd meme, you’re one of us. Philosopher Fredric Jameson described postmodern culture as often characterized by pastiche – a blank parody that imitates styles without deep satire, reflecting a “nostalgia mode” where we recycle old forms just for aesthetic pleasure. We can see some of that in digital subcultures: lots of 90s and Y2K nostalgia for its own sake, lots of remixing past media (how many retro video game or anime references are in memes?). Jameson worried this indicated a loss of depth, a kind of historical amnesia where all eras coexist as styles to play within. The internet is indeed very ahistorical in its cultural production – a meme doesn’t come with footnotes about the past, it just grabs whatever image fits. But one could argue there is a new kind of depth being formed – a depth in the network of references and the creativity of remix. It’s just a different kind of cultural depth: horizontal (across many influences at once) rather than vertical (deeply rooted in one tradition). Whether that’s lesser or just different is up for debate.

One real-world case study of digital subculture making a positive impact is ##BookTok. “BookTok” refers to the community of book lovers on TikTok who share short videos about their favorite reads – emotional reactions, recommendations, aesthetic posts of bookshelves, etc. This might sound niche, but BookTok became a massive force in publishing. By 2021, largely thanks to BookTok virality, U.S. print book sales rose by 9% – reaching their highest level since 2019. Young adult fiction and romance in particular saw huge boosts, as TikTok trends revived interest in reading for fun. Classics like Wuthering Heights found new teen audiences because a moody clip went viral, and unknown debut authors skyrocketed to the bestseller list after being championed by BookTok influencers. Barnes & Noble stores reported rising foot traffic, noting that suddenly young people are returning to bookstores in droves. In an age where we feared print was dying, a digital subculture arguably saved it (or at least gave it a reprieve). What’s more, BookTok has aspects of a folk culture: its own slang and tropes (users might say “this book had me in a chokehold” to mean it was gripping; they obsess over certain tropes like “enemies to lovers”), and communal practices like reading the same “BookTok made me buy it” novel and sharing reactions. It even has its lore and heroes – certain charismatic TikTok reviewers or particular beloved books that attain almost mythic status in the community. Interestingly, as one BookTok observer noted, the trendiness of BookTok has led publishers to market books in very formulaic ways to catch the algorithm’s eye – pretty covers, familiar tropes – which can result in a wave of derivative content. There it is again: the tension between depth and the drive for engagement. But savvy readers on BookTok themselves call this out and elevate truly good books too, showing that even within a fast-paced digital environment, people will seek quality and substance (once they’ve had their fill of the fluff).

Overall, the rise of emergent subcultures online shows the democratization of culture. People no longer have to rely on large media gatekeepers or physical proximity to create a cultural space. A few passionate individuals can start a trend or community that thousands join, all through short-form posts or memes that resonate. Some of these groups will vanish as interests change (RIP Vine stars and the communities around them), but others might evolve into new forms or even spill into offline life (how many Dungeons & Dragons groups were formed because folks met on a fantasy forum?). The key contribution of these micro-tribes is that they make culture more participatory. Folks are not just consuming culture, they’re co-creating it in real time – whether that’s inventing new memes, collaboratively writing fan fiction, or designing digital fashion in the metaverse. This participatory element is why many feel such strong identity ties to their online communities; it’s their space, their “home” on the vast internet. As with any folk culture, some of it will be nonsensical to outsiders or perhaps trivial in the grand scheme, but some will carry forward and influence the mainstream in unforeseen ways.

Polarization and Cultural Fragmentation: The Siloed Society Link to heading

While digital media has connected us across the globe, it has also, paradoxically, fragmented culture into echo chambers and silos. If the 20th century was marked by mass culture (everyone watching the same few TV channels, hearing the same news), the 21st century’s hallmark might be personalized culture – everyone getting their own feed, algorithmically tailored to their preferences and biases. This has profound effects on cultural cohesion and how we relate to each other as a society. We increasingly lack a shared base of information or experience, which fuels polarization – not just political, but cultural and epistemic (differences in what people accept as real or important).

The Echo Chamber of Infinite Mirrors Link to heading

Social media algorithms play a huge role here. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube want to maximize our engagement, so they serve up content similar to what we’ve already liked or that people “like us” have enjoyed. Over time, this creates a filter bubble or “cultural tunnel vision". You click on one cooking video, then you get dozens of cooking videos; your neighbor clicks on a conspiracy theory once, they get fed more of the same. The result is two neighbors might inhabit completely different online “worlds,” each thinking their world is the norm. As one analysis put it, we have access to more cultural content than ever, yet many find their cultural diets becoming increasingly narrow, cocooned by algorithmic suggestions. You might not even realize how curated your experience is – it feels like you are choosing what to read or watch, but often it’s the platform choosing on your behalf, based on data, nudging you subtly to stay in your comfort (or outrage) zone.

This algorithm-driven fragmentation dovetails with and intensifies partisan polarization. In the United States and many other countries, political identity has become a major axis of culture – affecting where people get news, which brands they support, even what music or comedy they enjoy (as those become politicized). Online, liberals and conservatives (or other opposing groups) often frequent completely different channels and forums. Each side develops its own memes, heroes, and villains. It’s as if we have parallel cultures: each with its own narrative about history, its own “facts,” and certainly its own preferred Twitter pundits. Social media didn’t create division in society, but research indicates it exacerbates. A 2020 article in Science summarized scholarly consensus that platforms like Facebook and Twitter have “intensified political sectarianism” – basically driving left and right further apart. When your feed is full of posts reaffirming your beliefs and painting the other side as fools or monsters, it’s hard to feel any common ground. And when you do encounter an opposing view, it’s often the most extreme or caricatured version (because extreme content generates more engagement and thus is more likely to go viral beyond its bubble). This fuels a perception that the other side is irrational or evil, thus justifying further entrenchment on one’s own side. It’s a vicious cycle of reinforcement.

But polarization isn’t only political. We’re also seeing cultural fragmentation in a broader sense – a splintering of the public into many niche publics. The era of everyone watching the same sitcom or news anchor is fading. Instead, one group might be bingeing Korean dramas on Viki, another marathoning true-crime YouTube series, another glued to Twitch game streams. There’s nothing wrong with diverse tastes – in fact, it’s wonderful that so many subcultures (as we discussed) can flourish. The downside is the loss of shared cultural touchstones. We have fewer common reference points across society. It’s telling that when a show like Game of Thrones or a global sporting event does manage to captivate a wide audience, it feels almost novel: “Wow, finally something lots of people watch together!” In the 2020s, even the Super Bowl (once a guaranteed shared national moment in the US) sees declining viewership among younger demos who are more fragmented in their media consumption.

This fragmentation can lead to a kind of cultural incoherence. Sociologist Zygmunt Bauman talked about “liquid modernity” – a state where old solidarities have melted and individuals drift in a fluid, fragmented state. Online culture exemplifies that liquidity: we flow in and out of micro-trends and communities, but a stable overarching narrative is hard to find. For some, this is freeing – you get to define your own mix of culture without being forced into a monolith. For society, however, it poses challenges: How do we deliberate important issues if we can’t even agree on basic facts or if we lack any common forum? How do we maintain social trust when every group has its own echo chamber reinforcing mistrust of others?

Furthermore, algorithms often amplify emotional and extreme content because that grabs attention (remember the old saying, “if it bleeds, it leads”). This has cultural consequences: the content that permeates a lot of people’s online life is full of outrage, fear, or ridicule. Day after day, being fed polarizing content can shape one’s worldview into a them-vs-us narrative on every topic. Even non-political cultural debates (say, over a new film or a celebrity’s behavior) quickly take on an argumentative tone online, with camps forming and hurling memes or insults at each other. The internet’s cacophony can make it seem like everything is polarized, even if in day-to-day offline life people might get along more easily.

It’s worth noting that not everyone is equally siloed. Some individuals make conscious efforts to diversify their media diet – following people they disagree with, or using apps that don’t algorithmically sort content. And some platforms (like certain subreddit communities or Discords) are moderated to encourage genuine discussion rather than flame wars. But the broader structural trend is toward fragmentation. We even see a fragmentation of truth: conspiracy theory subcultures (flat earthers, anti-vaccine groups, etc.) have flourished online by isolating themselves and reinforcing their alternate narratives. To the people in those groups, that is their culture – complete with its own experts, documentaries, and memes. Again, the medium lends an air of legitimacy to fringe ideas by allowing them to find one another and snowball. So the cultural pattern emerges: belief polarization, where communities drift so far apart in their basic worldview that constructive dialogue becomes extremely difficult.

The fragmentation extends to identity and values as well. While the internet has allowed intersectional identities to express themselves (which is great – you can be unabashedly your unique self and find others like you), it has also meant that people can silo by identity in ways that sometimes hamper mutual understanding. In extreme cases, you get the phenomenon of people disallowing others from commenting on “their culture” – e.g., “If you’re not part of our gamer community, your opinion on gaming doesn’t count.” These walls can create a fractured cultural landscape with little islands that occasionally lob grenades at each other (figuratively speaking) but have scant constructive interaction.

It’s not all doom and gloom: awareness of this problem has grown, and there are efforts to combat it. For instance, media literacy programs teach folks to burst their filter bubbles, and some technologists advocate for “bridging content” algorithms (ones that intentionally introduce you to different perspective). But implementing that is tough when outrage and tribalism are so much more profitable for engagement. Perhaps, as some suggest, the next phase of cultural evolution in the digital age will involve people intentionally seeking slowness and breadth – joining book clubs, watching long-form discussions (podcasts have oddly countered the trend by proving people will listen to 3-hour conversations if content is good), or simply taking breaks from the onslaught to reconnect with immediate community and common humanity.

In summary, the same digital environment that has created a vibrant diversity of subcultures has also splintered the collective cultural sphere. We have more choice and voice than ever, but fewer shared songs to sing together. The challenge ahead is figuring out how to maintain a sense of collective culture – at least enough that society can function and people can empathize with each other – without sacrificing the rich pluralism that the internet has enabled. It’s a delicate balancing act between unity and diversity, between having a common story and allowing many stories. And it’s an act we’re still learning how to perform.

Toward Depth and Continuity in a Networked World Link to heading

Looking across these dimensions – from generational shifts to global versus local identities, from remixed rituals to activism and subcultures to our polarized infosphere – a common thread emerges: culture is being compressed and accelerated, sometimes at the expense of depth. The speed and brevity of digital interactions can make culture feel like it’s skimming the surface: a constant feed of new stimuli with little time to soak in any single experience. It’s easy to lament this “shallowfication” (to borrow a term, though we’ve avoided using it until now) of culture. Indeed, thinkers like Postman and Jameson before the internet even existed worried about exactly this – that entertainment values would erode serious discourse, that nostalgia and pastiche would replace originality and historical memory. And in many ways, those worries have materialized in our feeds and our minds.

Nostalgia as a Digital Drug Link to heading

But history shows that culture has a remarkable resilience. Humans have an innate hunger for meaning, connection, and narrative that goes beyond novelty and convenience. That hunger doesn’t disappear just because TikTok exists; if anything, it finds new expressions. We see this in the very trends of digital nostalgia and analog revival – young people seeking depth and authenticity (even if ironically) as an antidote to the ephemerality of the digital. We see it in the persistence of long-form content like podcasts, documentaries, and yes, books – formats that are thriving in niches despite the overall dominance of short-form media. Even on TikTok and Twitter, not everything is shallow; there are educators, activists, and artists who manage to pack insight and storytelling into short clips and threads, using the medium creatively to foster genuine understanding.

The future of cultural depth and continuity likely won’t come from rejecting digital culture outright (that genie is long out of the bottle). Rather, it may come from cultivating intentional habits and spaces within the digital world that prioritize quality over quantity, and community over virality. This could mean individual choices, like deciding to follow creators who do thoughtful content and limiting doom-scrolling. It could mean community initiatives, like online forums with strong moderation to encourage respectful, in-depth dialogue (some corners of Reddit, for instance, are known for high-quality discussions). It could also mean new platforms or tools designed with a different ethos – say, a social network that rewards collaborative storytelling or problem-solving more than hot takes.

Importantly, reviving depth doesn’t imply a return to some mythical “good old days” or a dismissal of all digital-age innovations. Every cultural era has its mix of shallow and profound. The goal is to find continuity – to carry forward the wisdom and richness of older cultural layers (the campfire stories, the local rituals, the patient activism, the folk knowledge) and weave them into our current practice of culture. For example, can we make scrolling through Instagram a more mindful ritual? Some people are trying – there are influencers who prompt reflection or gratitude in their posts amidst the selfies. Can we ensure that when a meme spreads, the lesson or truth behind it isn’t lost? Sometimes this happens naturally – a meme about mental health can open up serious conversations in its wake. The key is intention: using the tools while being aware of how the tools might be using us. As the saying goes (attributed to McLuhan’s colleague John Culkin), “We shape our tools and then our tools shape us.” We have shaped these digital platforms; now we must shape how they shape us, steering culture rather than being merely led by the algorithms.

There’s also something to be said for bridging the digital and physical. Many cultural observers suggest that hybrid models can restore depth. For instance, a TikTok-driven interest in dance could be channeled into local dance workshops where people actually meet and learn in person, grounding the viral in the visceral. Online religious services might be complemented by smaller house gatherings. Hashtag activism can lead to community town halls or volunteer events once initial connections are made. BookTok has driven people to bookstores and libraries – a perfect example of an online spark igniting offline engagement. These bridges ensure that digital culture feeds, rather than replaces, real-world cultural participation.

In navigating the polarized, fast-paced cultural climate, another virtue to cultivate is empathy – which is itself a deep practice. It’s easy to react (System 1 style) to the latest tweet and forget there’s a human on the other side. Deliberately slowing down to consider other perspectives, or even engaging in person when possible, helps counter the fragmenting tendencies of online life. Many people now talk about “digital sabbaths” or tech-free days where they disconnect to reconnect with slower, older forms of culture: taking a nature walk, visiting a museum, having an hours-long face-to-face chat. Far from being anti-culture, these practices can rejuvenate one’s capacity to contribute meaningfully to culture when plugged back in.

In closing, we might recall how this discussion began: with the notion that culture is negotiated between inheritance and innovation. That is as true as ever. We have inherited incredibly rich tapestries – ethnic traditions, philosophical ideas, artistic techniques, ethical values – and we are also in the middle of a grand innovation in how culture is shared (instantly, globally, interactively). The task before us is to ensure that this innovation doesn’t burn up the tapestry, but rather adds new vibrant threads to it. It will require conscious effort to maintain cultural continuity: teaching younger generations the stories behind the memes, the history behind the trends, the human dignity behind the avatars. It will also require humility and openness from older generations to recognize that new expressions (yes, even goofy viral dances or video game lore) can carry meaning and value in ways they might not initially see.

If we succeed, the outcome could be the best of both worlds – a culture that is richly layered and inclusive, one that harnesses the connectivity and creativity of digital media while retaining the depth, empathy, and cohesiveness that give culture its lasting power. We might then truly have that global village where people share freely and cherish their local colors; where communication is instantaneous and understanding is profound. It’s an idealistic vision, to be sure. But culture has always been a work in progress, and in this frenetic age, perhaps a bit of intentional cultural gardening – pruning here, nurturing there – can ensure that our garden of collective human expression grows not just wide, but deep.

Ultimately, human culture is ours to shape. The tools have changed, the pace has quickened, but the fundamental capacity for reflection, creativity, and community remains. By leveraging that capacity – by remembering to occasionally step away from the shallow stream of clicks and tend to the wellsprings of meaning – we stand a good chance of keeping our cultural life not only alive and well, but thriving in new and unexpected ways. The campfire’s glow might now come from a smartphone, but the impulse is the same: to share our stories, to make sense of the world together, to laugh and to mourn and to dream as one people even as we celebrate our many differences. That is the heart of culture, and it can survive any medium. We just have to give it the care and time it needs to flourish.