Anyone with a smartphone can reach a global audience.

There was a time when popular media created a shared monoculture—everyone watched the M A S H* finale or the Seinfeld farewell. Today, we have fractured into a thousand subcultures. Your "must-watch" is my "never-heard-of-it." This fragmentation has democratized storytelling (allowing niche anime, K-dramas, or indie horror to find global audiences) but has also created echo chambers. We no longer share a reality; we share a feed.