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Vince's avatar

I think TikTok may be part of the answer to the question - I’m not a TikToker, in fact I’m one of those people who mostly reads old books, watches old movies and plays old games. But my sense is that TikTok (and Instagram, etc.) takes up a massive percentage of young people’s media consumption, and by its very nature most of that is ‘new content.’ But when people spend hours a day on TikTok that crowds out the time they spend on other things and means that when they watch a movie, say, they’re doing so because it’s one they’ve heard of, and rather than go watch a new movie about something they’ve never heard of, they’ll just watch more reels.

Then again, as you’ve pointed out, the trends go further back than that, so they may be independent trends - or TikTok’s rise may be in some ways a symptom of the weakness of the older industries.

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Letters from Kate's avatar

Ok so I’m one of those souls writing new books… but seriously, aren’t we dead as souls if none of us are creating?

Great article though. Disturbing! But great

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