At this current point in our cultural history, there are so many choices.
What was once the album has been broken into singles, spread across the Spotifyverse, landing into algorithmic mixes of various styles and moods.
What was once a movie release year has been expanded across streaming platforms, into days, weeks, months, seasons, and in such volume as to be a geyser of which no one can figure out how to approach.
What was once a TV season has been dislodged into an alternate reality in which time is nonlinear and fluid. Entire seasons can be ignored and caught up with years later, with several seasons consumed in a lazy weekend. There is no urgency except to be the first to say something. What was once the talk of the year has become the Talk of A Couple Days. From there, it’s a years-long stream of intermittent conversation you have to seek out to participate in.
What was once books and magazines has exploded into rabbit holes borne by Kindles and the Internet alike, deep dives of articles, e-books, and clickbait, with barely the chance to come up for air. There is so much to read and so much need for content that I cannot tell who is more distracted and starved: the writer or the reader.
I have no issue with the vastness of our choices. What I do take issue with, however, is our disappearing conversation. We are just so quick to move on from one thing to another. Sometimes by choice. Sometimes by autoplay. Sometimes because we feel we have to keep up with whatever we think we need to keep up with.
What we have gained in access, we have lost in community. Conversations with friends about culture are very rarely about a thing shared, but rather an exchange of the various things we’ve watched, seen, or heard. And when we’re finally hitting upon a commonality in the discourse? It’s like a bolt of lightning. NOW we can be electrified by our similarity or difference of opinion. Now we can be reminded we’re not alone, and that we did not witness this incredible or terrible cultural entity in a vacuum.
The universe is expanding. It feels like we’re all in orbit, missing things the first time and coming back around to catch them. But that orbit checkpoint may be 3 days, 3 weeks, or 3 years down the road. And considering the vastness of the cultural universe, who knows who else will meet us there?
This is very likely why I have flocked to Twitter in recent weeks. I never post anything, but I frequently check in with my favorite Tweeters. I thoroughly enjoy the amount of damn good jokes and interesting insight that can be found through a casual scroll, but what I really seek is something far simpler: someone talking about the same thing that I’m witnessing or thinking about.
Someone talking about the general problematicness of THE GREEN BOOK. Someone talking about Jussie Smollett. Someone talking about LeBron’s Baby Lakers again shitting the bed after a nice win a couple days before.
Tonight, the Oscars will likely be what they’ve always been: an overlong ceremony with slack and speed, with people told to hurry up as they luxuriate in their achievement, and several presenting pairs that force an eyebrow or two to be raised. I don’t expect my favorites to win; they rarely do. But I will be watching, and I will be looking to Twitter. I will briefly partake in that most nostalgic feeling of all: that we’re all partaking in the same thing.
