I think we’ll see an expansion to most of the First World of the trend we see in cities like San Francisco, where the Internet has allowed people to organize niche cultures (steampunk, furries, pyromaniacs, etc.) like never before. I think that, by and large, people would prefer to seek out a smaller culture based on a common idiosyncratic interest if it were an option, not least because rising in status there is often easier than getting noticed in the local mainstream culture. I think that the main reason the mainstream culture is presently so large, therefore, is because it’s hard for a juggling enthusiast in Des Moines to find like-minded people.
I expect that over the next 10 years, more and more niche cultures will arise and begin to sprout their own characteristics, with the measurable effect that cultural products will have to be targeted more narrowly. I expect that the most popular books, music, etc. of the late 2010s will sell fewer copies in the US than the most popular books, music, etc. of the Aughts, but that total consumption of media will go up substantially as a thousand niche bands, niche fiction markets, etc. become the norm. I expect that high schoolers in 2020 will spend less social time with their classmates and more time with the groups they met through the Internet.
And I expect that the next generation of hipsters will find a way to be irritatingly disdainful of a thousand cultures at once.
(Though some other trends have obviously reversed- streaming music ate album and single sales, which were increasing rapidly in the iTunes era of the 2000s.)
Thanks for the link! I didn’t know there was already a version of this theory out there, and I didn’t know the actual figures.
So what do I make of this data (assuming the veracity of the Wikipedia summary, since I’m not dedicated enough to read the papers)? Well, I’m surprised by it.
I’m not especially surprised. Aside from possible confounding factors like the rise of Free & free stuff (strongest in subcultures) which obviously wouldn’t get counted in commercial metrics, technological and economic development means that mass media can spread even further than Internet-borne stuff can. cue anecdotes about Mickey Mouse posters in African huts, etc.
The subcultures seem to me to appeal mostly to the restricted 1st World wealthier demographics that powered the mass media you are thinking of; one might caricature it as ‘white’ stuff. It makes sense that a subculture like anime/manga or FLOSS, which primarily is cannibalizing the ‘white’ market, can shrink ever more in percentage terms as the old ‘white’ stuff like Disney expand overseas into South America, Africa, Southeast Asia and so on.
If you had formulated your thesis in absolute numbers (‘there will be more FLOSS enthusiasts in 2020 than 2010’), then I think you would be absolutely right. You might be able to get away with restricted areas too (‘there will be more otaku in Japan in 2020 than 2010, despite a ~static population’). But nothing more.
Following up: I was wrong about my most testable prediction. The biggest media hits in the USA are getting proportionally larger, not smaller, though this may be mediated by streaming/ebooks taking away from the traditional outlets.
(If you find more complete sources for any of these, let me know. I restricted to the US because the international market is growing so rapidly it would skew any trends.)
Music: This is obviously confounded by the switch from buying physical albums to streaming music, but in any case, it looks as if I was wrong: the top albums have sold comparable numbers of copies (after averaging out by 5-year increments) since 2005, while the total number of album sales has plummeted. (Maybe people are only buying albums for the most popular artists and massively diversifying their streaming music, but in any case I would have antipredicted the top artist album sales staying constant.)
Books: Total revenue for trade books has stayed remarkably consistent at about $15 billion per year for the past five years; I didn’t find first-half-of-decade results as easily. Top books by print copies might be misleading, but they’re easy to find retrospectively using Publishers Weekly lists like this one. And they’ve been increasing since 2014, though 2013 had the massive outlier of the Fifty Shades series (sigh). Another loss for the theory.
And more broadly/vaguely, the US social media landscape looks less like a land of ten thousand subcultures and more like a land of fewer than ten megacultures, each fairly defined by their politics and united on their morality and aesthetics.
So it’s possible that, if we had a really huge, dense, wired city with excellent transportation, we would find a significant subculture of steampunk furries, or vampire gothic lolita hip-hop dance squads? Actually, this sounds like a lot like Tokyo.
And I expect that the next generation of hipsters will find a way to be irritatingly disdainful of a thousand cultures at once.
It’s easy, really. Practice this phrase: “Man, what weirdos.” You just have to selectively overlook the weirdness of your own subculture while recognizing and stigmatizing it in others. It’s an elegant approach.
One word: subcultures.
I think we’ll see an expansion to most of the First World of the trend we see in cities like San Francisco, where the Internet has allowed people to organize niche cultures (steampunk, furries, pyromaniacs, etc.) like never before. I think that, by and large, people would prefer to seek out a smaller culture based on a common idiosyncratic interest if it were an option, not least because rising in status there is often easier than getting noticed in the local mainstream culture. I think that the main reason the mainstream culture is presently so large, therefore, is because it’s hard for a juggling enthusiast in Des Moines to find like-minded people.
I expect that over the next 10 years, more and more niche cultures will arise and begin to sprout their own characteristics, with the measurable effect that cultural products will have to be targeted more narrowly. I expect that the most popular books, music, etc. of the late 2010s will sell fewer copies in the US than the most popular books, music, etc. of the Aughts, but that total consumption of media will go up substantially as a thousand niche bands, niche fiction markets, etc. become the norm. I expect that high schoolers in 2020 will spend less social time with their classmates and more time with the groups they met through the Internet.
And I expect that the next generation of hipsters will find a way to be irritatingly disdainful of a thousand cultures at once.
What do you make of criticism that sales currently show the exact opposite trend?
Well, your criticism was correct.
(Though some other trends have obviously reversed- streaming music ate album and single sales, which were increasing rapidly in the iTunes era of the 2000s.)
Thanks for the link! I didn’t know there was already a version of this theory out there, and I didn’t know the actual figures.
So what do I make of this data (assuming the veracity of the Wikipedia summary, since I’m not dedicated enough to read the papers)? Well, I’m surprised by it.
I’m not especially surprised. Aside from possible confounding factors like the rise of Free & free stuff (strongest in subcultures) which obviously wouldn’t get counted in commercial metrics, technological and economic development means that mass media can spread even further than Internet-borne stuff can. cue anecdotes about Mickey Mouse posters in African huts, etc.
The subcultures seem to me to appeal mostly to the restricted 1st World wealthier demographics that powered the mass media you are thinking of; one might caricature it as ‘white’ stuff. It makes sense that a subculture like anime/manga or FLOSS, which primarily is cannibalizing the ‘white’ market, can shrink ever more in percentage terms as the old ‘white’ stuff like Disney expand overseas into South America, Africa, Southeast Asia and so on.
If you had formulated your thesis in absolute numbers (‘there will be more FLOSS enthusiasts in 2020 than 2010’), then I think you would be absolutely right. You might be able to get away with restricted areas too (‘there will be more otaku in Japan in 2020 than 2010, despite a ~static population’). But nothing more.
You forgot us!
Following up: I was wrong about my most testable prediction. The biggest media hits in the USA are getting proportionally larger, not smaller, though this may be mediated by streaming/ebooks taking away from the traditional outlets.
(If you find more complete sources for any of these, let me know. I restricted to the US because the international market is growing so rapidly it would skew any trends.)
Music: This is obviously confounded by the switch from buying physical albums to streaming music, but in any case, it looks as if I was wrong: the top albums have sold comparable numbers of copies (after averaging out by 5-year increments) since 2005, while the total number of album sales has plummeted. (Maybe people are only buying albums for the most popular artists and massively diversifying their streaming music, but in any case I would have antipredicted the top artist album sales staying constant.)
Books: Total revenue for trade books has stayed remarkably consistent at about $15 billion per year for the past five years; I didn’t find first-half-of-decade results as easily. Top books by print copies might be misleading, but they’re easy to find retrospectively using Publishers Weekly lists like this one. And they’ve been increasing since 2014, though 2013 had the massive outlier of the Fifty Shades series (sigh). Another loss for the theory.
Movies: Domestic box office has been growing slowly, and the biggest domestic hits have been growing rapidly. Essentially, Disney is eating the movie theater market with their big franchises.
And more broadly/vaguely, the US social media landscape looks less like a land of ten thousand subcultures and more like a land of fewer than ten megacultures, each fairly defined by their politics and united on their morality and aesthetics.
So it’s possible that, if we had a really huge, dense, wired city with excellent transportation, we would find a significant subculture of steampunk furries, or vampire gothic lolita hip-hop dance squads? Actually, this sounds like a lot like Tokyo.
It’s easy, really. Practice this phrase: “Man, what weirdos.” You just have to selectively overlook the weirdness of your own subculture while recognizing and stigmatizing it in others. It’s an elegant approach.