This past Friday morning, while spending time with a client, something occurred to me. It moved me enough to say, “Jim, if it were thirty-five years ago, before diving into business, we would have discussed last night’s Seinfeld episode.”
The exchange that Jim and I would’ve had all those years ago would not have been unique; most of America, be it in high school hallways, cafeterias, and in the workplace, would be all abuzz over a shared experience.
And then I dove a bit deeper, asking the question: when was the last time a popular song seeped into the American conscience in a way that bridged generational divides? With a gun to my head, I could not hum a single bar of a Taylor Swift song (that’s no reflection on Miss Swift). Conversely, thirty-five years ago, my grandmother, mother, and I could hum any one of a dozen Beatles or Michael Jackson songs. What changed?
I dove deeper yet, pondering the last time when a movie offered up an iconic line or image? Once upon a decade, one could quote a movie line (We need a bigger boat – I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse) to make a point, and everyone in the room, because they had the same frame of reference, would get the inference. But no more. What has changed?
Michael Jackson pierced the American ethos like a comet hitting a planet. Shows such as Seinfeld and The Sopranos made a similar impact. Moreover, each new calendar year offered up at least three movies that inspired people to storm theaters. Why? We were once a nation that connected over shared experiences across many domains. What changed? Hmm.
Not long ago (seventeen years) we were a monoculture. Presently, and for the foreseeable future, we evolved into an atomized society that has exploded into 340-million separate parts, each with its own customized ecosystem. We cannot even bear the randomness of radio, thus we each come equipped with our own playlist. Before long, the spontaneity of commercial radio will go by the way of the sitcom—just another evolutionary casualty cast out by climate-controlled ecosystems with no room or tolerance for heterodoxy. Indeed, every movement, click, search, purchase, connection, and gradation we make feeds an algorithm that augments our digital avatars. And thus, we may have arrived at that critical point when, at scale, the avatars have surpassed their prototypes. Moreover, it has been a painless process because we were too busy feeding algorithms that have and continue to feed us to ourselves. Doubtless, historians will dub this unfortunate period The age of self-cannibalism.
But because I’m a baseball fan that adheres to the maxim Hope springs eternal, optimism courses through my veins. And thus, I have a vision—one that sees all of humanity rise up and form a line. Once assembled, the line, unprompted, marches in a perfunctory manner. At the end of billions of outstretched arms, a device dangles from billions of fingertips. This mass of humanity marches toward a well so deep and so vacuous it can hold all the world’s sins. As each prototype reaches the well, they allow their device, which has held dominion over their lives, to fall from their fingertips. As the device plummets, they sigh as though a great weight has lifted. Next, I see someone in the crowd. They approach another and cry, “I remember you; we were friends until that godless device informed me that I must become your enemy because we disagreed politically.”
“Funny,” said the friend, “but I can scarcely remember why we disagreed,” and thus they embraced and reminisced the aspects that long ago had formed their friendship. They walk away, hand-in-hand and light of heart, as they sing an old favorite song.
I’m not sure if that equaled three wishes or one massive plea for sanity. Either way, it’s asking a lot. But I can hope, can’t I?
Michael's Corner 
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