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Tati Sirisano
Foreign.
Dan Runcy
I'm Dan Runcy. Welcome to trapital, where today you're gonna hear a debate and the topic is monoculture. For years, the common argument has been that monoculture is dead. We have more platforms, more niches, more personalization, and fewer moments where everyone is watching, listening, or talking about the same thing. But I'm not sure that that tells the full story about today or what it used to be like. Sure, our culture may be more segmented, but is it actually different because there's a case to be made that things were more different 15, 20, 30 years ago? Are we living in a world today where there's more niches, but those niches look, sound and feel increasingly similar? The person I normally talk to about this topic is Tati Sirisato, our friend of the podcast. If you follow Tati's work, you know how deeply she has researched fragmentation in music, entertainment and culture. So in this conversation, her and I debate about whether monoculture has ever really existed, whether the 90s and 2000s were actually more different and fragmented than we may remember, and how the algorithms today may have replaced the old school gatekeepers with something that's even more powerful, but quite different. Our conversation got at a much bigger question for the executives, the founders and the investors out there. In a world where there's infinite choice, more options than ever, why does culture feel the way that it does today? And what does that mean for the people that are investing and building in this future and making the bets on where they think things are going moving forward? I hope you enjoy this one as much as we did. Here's our debate on monoculture. I have some exciting news for you. Our Trapital Summit is back for year three on Tuesday, September 15th. Some rooms matter more than others, and this is one of them. We built this summit for the people who are shaping what's next across music, media, technology and capital. Your founders, executives, investors and operators. The people making decisions, asking sharper questions and building where culture and business are headed. This is not about packing a room for the sake of it. It is about bringing together the right people for the right conversations at the right time. If you care about where the business of culture, entertainment, technology is going, this is a room you want to be in. Our tickets for the Trapital Summit go live on Thursday, April 30. We'll see you there in Los Angeles in September. Can't wait. Alright. We are here for a lively discussion about monoculture and whether or not it actually existed. We are here with an expert on this topic, Tati Sirisano, why are you convinced that monoculture, as we've talked about it, did exist?
Tati Sirisano
I just think about how much has changed about media in the past, I don't know, hundred years. And you think about sort of the mass media days when everything was delivered linearly. There was much more sort of synchronicity where everyone tended to experience the same things at the same time. The season finale of the Sopranos or the Seinfeld, everyone sort of had to watch at the same time. And there was also sort of these built in limits, I guess, on how many titles of any type of entertainment could be surfaced at once. Right. Like you think about the space on a shelf at Tower Records or the number of films that the box office would, would hold these inbuilt limits to consumption. And yes, you could still, of course, go off and go to the record store and find something sort of more niche and less mainstream, but you had to be willing to make that extra effort. Whereas today these things are just kind of served to you whether you're making the extra effort or not. So for all those reasons and more, I just, I sort of can't discount how much the entertainment landscape has changed and the impact that that has on what people are consuming. And so this is a topic that I'm super fascinated by and I'm pretty convinced about.
Dan Runcy
If you would have told me with the examples that you gave, that you were Referring to the 60s or 70s, when JAWS becomes the first movie to truly be a blockbuster, or everyone was watching Walter Cronkite on tv, I would have been like, okay, you could have convinced me that there was a monoculture there. Or when Gone with the Wind is in theaters and people went to go see it week after week. Sure. But if you're bringing up Seinfeld and the Sopranos, I think that's where I drift off, especially with those time frames. Like there are specific things that just felt core to a particular group of people. People. Even if we just looked at tv, for instance, I felt like with kids, specifically, you could have kids that have their own culture, watching things on Disney Channel, watching things on Nickelodeon, watching things on other networks as well. And that is completely different from what their older brothers or sisters may have been watching, which is also completely different from their parents watching Nick at night or watching some network drama on CBS or whatever it is. And. And today it feels like there's much more of a overlap there. So even though to your point, we have more options than ever, I do think that the options plus the algorithms and the technology have led us to having a bit more sameness, even though we believe that there's a bit more differentiation, but it's really more segmentation than it is different.
Tati Sirisano
I feel like one. One of the things that you're picking up on is how. I feel like there's sort of this difference when we talk about monoculture between are we measuring actual consumption, are we all consuming the same things? Or is what we're measuring a collective consciousness and the existence of that? Because I feel like Even in the 90s and 2000s and even the start of the 2010s, yes, there might have been all these differentiated or segmented groups that had their own cultures within them, but there was still this collective consciousness that everyone knew about mainstream things, even if they didn't consume them or engage with them. Beyond that, like, the exposure was mono in a way. I think about the VMAs and all of the moments that were birthed from those ceremonies that we still talk about today. And things like Dalo breaking the Internet with her Versace dress at the Grammys and literally inventing Google Photos. Google images, when falling off your bike in a funny way would get you invited on Ellen, because memes even were so much sort of less fragmented. So it's like, I think there is a difference between saying that we used to have a collective consciousness which has now maybe been lost, and saying we used to consume all the same things and now do not. Because I take your point on there have always been people in niches and even just in segments by demographic or by where you are on the map, that of course, are going to have sort of different consumption. But in terms of all sort of agreeing on the song of the summer. For example, when's the last time that we all agreed on that, even if you didn't listen to one dance or despacito, you probably at the time were like, oh, yeah, that's the song of the summer.
Dan Runcy
Okay, a few things here. I do want to get to the Song of the Summer point. I think that one's a little bit different. But you mentioning whether it's old award shows or even music or things like that that were culturally relevant even if you didn't listen to it. Is that that different from today? Because, like Celine Dion doing this song with Titanic, My Heart Will Go on and that whole movie being its whole pop culture phenomenon. Yes, that's true. The same could also be said about Taylor Swift today. Even if you're not a big fan of her music, even if you're not Listening to her, people probably have some awareness of her winning these awards, her going on this tour, life of a showgirl, et cetera.
Tati Sirisano
I feel like the fragmentation of today doesn't mean that there's an absence of hits or of mainstream moments. I think it just means, one, that maybe they're fewer and further between. Two, that maybe they turn over more quickly. Consumption and culture fragments, the groups that make up those fragmented subsegments, have grown because they're more accessible, because algorithms are pushing you into them. So it's possible for something to sort of feel mainstream and reach millions of people, but still not actually make the technical definition of being mainstream, which we take to be like 50% or more of, of consumers or of the population. So I think that things can feel mainstream today, but may not fit the same definition as they used to. And then the one other thing I wanted to say with Taylor Swift, because she always comes up in this conversation. Everyone's always like, well, how do you explain Taylor Swift then? I think that Taylor Swift's smash success is in part because of fragmentation, not in spite of it. And I'll explain why. I think that if you are the rare artist or any other type of entertainment that was able to rise to prominence before things got so fragmented. So I would say prior to like maybe 2015 or the late 2010s, and you can still draw on that audience, you're in this really rare bucket of entertainment now that is able to get everyone listening to. You're watching the same thing at once. And so because the rest of consumption is so fragmented, it ironically makes it easier for that hit to rise to the top. So it's almost like a split vote scenario. Like every. Everyone's votes are split among so many songs and artists that if you are the rare person that can get a lot of people listening to the same thing at once, you're sort of automatically going to be number one, if that makes sense. But obviously there's so many other things behind Taylor Swift's success. But I think she's maybe helped by the fragmentation in a way, rather than being hurt by it.
Dan Runcy
And I think that point you just made is why I'd make the case that there's actually more model culture now, relatively speaking, than there was to 20, 30 years ago. Because this dynamic, even if it wasn't Taylor, there would be someone else. Drake was in the same spot for quite some time. We'll see what the rest of 2026 brings for him. But I think that that's always been there and to be honest, the same case could be made for the popularity of Friends, the popularity of Mariah carey in the 90s, or any of these people that were omnipresent, bigger than ever. But I do think the one thing that is different, though, because someone like Taylor is as large as she is, I think that the nature of our media, especially because of how algorithms and everything plays into it. There was a piece that I wish I could cite, but they framed this well. You look at the way the Internet works today. You have your stages, you have your porches, and you have your living rooms. There are fewer but larger big stages than ever. And Taylor Swift is one of those people that has a stage. Bad Bunny, a stage. Drake, I still do believe that he has a stage. You could put Adele or maybe Beyonce and others. When they do have something, the moment breaks through. And even outside of those artists, I'd say even sometimes particular songs can have that. I know that you mentioned Despacito and One Dance, but the same case could be made for a bar song, Tipsy, which was in that spot. The case could be made for Espresso, being in that spot in 2024. But I do think this concept of these porches, where you do have these small areas where you could have a pocket that feels like it can thrive without being part of that mainstream area. And that feels, if anything, probably still pretty consistent where you go back to the late 90s or even the early 2000s. Yes, you had 50 Cent, Eminem and Nelly and Jay Z doing numbers, but you also had conscious rap in other areas of rap that still had their own lanes, and R B was still doing its thing, and other areas of even pop music that were a bit more alternative or even alt rock. And now it feels like in music there's less of those distinct areas. And that's when I really sat with this thought, because I think for you, like, similarly, I think I probably agreed with you on this topic for a bit, but that's when I really paused with it. I was like, okay, well, how different is this and how much has actually changed?
Tati Sirisano
I have some data I wanted to bring to bear that actually, now that you brought it up with Espresso and Tipsy, there's a. There's a part to it that validates what I'm saying, and there's a part to it that validates what you're saying, which is really interesting. So without further ado, break out the data, which isn't METEO data. It's from bpi. So bpi, the recorded Music trade organization, they publish this report every year, all about the music report, because there's this one stat that they published that I love that's so helpful, which is the percentage of total annual audio streams in the UK that go to the top 10, I think artists in the top 100 songs or something like that. So it's basically a representation of how much the hits are dominating on streaming. And albeit this is only a measurement in the UK, and in 2016, the top 100 tracks accounted for 10.3% of total annual audio streams in the UK, and by 2024, that had dropped to below 4%. It's not just this collective consciousness or this exposure to a mainstream, it's also the consumption of that content itself, and that it's becoming much more fragmented across many more songs and artists, and that there are still hits, but they're dominating a bit less than they used to. But then there's this really interesting thing that happened that I noticed last year, which is that in 2024, for the first time, that percentage grew, and it was only by 0.1%. So it's more like it stabilized than that it really grew. But it feels like we are weirdly reaching this point with. We're reaching this point with this fragmentation trend, where it almost feels like things maybe can't get any more fragmented and we're moving back in the opposite direction. And maybe that's a cultural thing, maybe that's. That has to do with the digital landscape and how things have developed. But I do find it interesting that last year is when this trend reversed for the first time. And it's also when we had espresso, and it's also when we had Brat. And it feels like we did have some of these moments, moments that felt a little bit like bigger on a mainstream level and in this collective consciousness level than we've had before. So, yeah, I find that data really fascinating.
Dan Runcy
My first thought when I look at any comparison in that time frame is the number of people that are now using music streaming in 2016 compared to today has increased considerably. And it's more a reflection of the behavior of the people that are now included in that data set that weren't included in that data set beforehand, as opposed to necessarily some. Something that is different about the people that were part of that 2016 set and what those same people are doing now in 2026 or even 2025, as there was a bit of an uptick there, all that to say, I think there's a few things that may be correlated. That may be not necessarily as causal as the data may imply sometimes.
Tati Sirisano
Yeah, totally. I think that's a really valid point. I will say. I think it would be I would be more convinced if the data was more global versus just looking at the UK where it feels like, yes, obviously the UK streaming subscribers have grown a lot since 2016, but it feels like I'd be more convinced that it's more about just new people joining streaming if this was more of like a global percentage. But I completely take what you're saying. You kind of just have to look at all these data points and find out all the caveats and see where you land. Which is kind of what we're doing now, I guess.
Dan Runcy
Let's take a break for our chart metric stat of the week, where I have yet another example of why today feels more like monoculture than Yesterday did. Justin Bieber's 2012 song Beauty and a Beat is one of the biggest songs on streaming across platforms. It's in the top three globally on Spotify. It's also in the top three on YouTube and on Apple Music. It's the number one song in several countries, including China and plenty of others. You'd be hard pressed to find any song that was the number one song in the country across platforms 20, 30 years ago. Even if you compare the number one song on radio or the number one song on TRL, the number one song on the Billboard charts, they're most likely going to be a different song. The sameness that we see today, despite different platforms having different user profiles, different concentration in different countries, it gets back to that sameness that we're talking about, where Justin Bieber, thanks to his 2026 Coachella performance and the boost that that's given to his back catalog has benefited Bieber, his record label, and the investors that own a portion of his back catalog. Let's get back to the episode. I want to shift gears for music and talk about Internet culture, which I know is very close to your heart as well, because this is another area where I've also questioned the existence of monoculture. One thing that you and I have talked about in our past podcast, whether we've talked About Meta and WhatsApp or any of these platforms, is the sameness that can exist where all of these platforms have the same tools, have the same features. And sure, we may shift some of how we communicate certain things, but a lot of companies, a lot of people, myself, yourself, and the companies we work for and represent included, we're all kind of posting the Same stuff on the same platforms to try to reach the same people, because they all have the same functionality and they're all powered by algorithms that even if we have our own niches of how we're trying to say certain things or reach slightly different people, there's still a certain aesthetic in terms of how we're speaking that kind of fits the platform and fits the vibe, which attributes to the sameness that I'm talking about, which in my opinion was not the case 15 or even 20 years ago. If we go back to, I know you and I are close enough in age to I think probably have similar memories about a lot of this stuff. But if I go back to earlier periods of the Internet, Tumblr felt like its own little porch where people had their own communities there. The earlier days of Facebook and MySpace, even places like AOL, Instant Messenger, Black Planet, you had Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger. All of these areas felt unique, distinct. People were expressing themselves in very different ways than they do now, versus I think that now, because the algorithms and the business models and the insurification have all taken over, there's a bit more sameness in terms of how we carry ourselves on these platforms, how we communicate. And I think that's also shifted our in real life behavior as well, where I think there's a lot more cultural collapse across races, ages, demographics and others than ever before. And if anything, those are the kind of things that sameness makes me feel like, okay, was there really a monoculture that we once had that we no longer have because we're more fragmented, or is it actually reversed?
Tati Sirisano
No, it's so fascinating because you would think that social media and the proliferation of the Internet would make for more diversity and more like discovery and things like that, but it does sort of feel like it's done the opposite. But I think that it is about sort of like those incentives and the incidentification that you talked about, where algorithms, whether we're talking about social media or streaming or what have you, they do sort of incentivize sameness, because if you sound like someone else or if you're doing the same trend that's already popular on TikTok, you're more likely to get surface to people, they're more likely to watch it, and that sort of chain of events is more likely to happen. Whereas if you create something that is not immediately legible, that is not sort of immediately part of something that's already happening, there's sort of this risk of getting buried. And especially now that social media has become so Much more of a business. Even if you're someone who isn't using TikTok or Instagram as like, it feels like it's your profile. All of those incentives mean that people care to be successful on these platforms and success means a lot of times blending in. I think that there is something to be said for like what the algorithms incentivize and how that, how that impacts our culture. There's more niches or more subsegments of culture, but within those sub segments there's not a lot of diversity.
Dan Runcy
Exactly. We have more segmentation, but we have less differentiation.
Tati Sirisano
Yes.
Dan Runcy
Even across ages. I feel like it's more common now to see a 12 year old, a 27 year old and a 42 year old that could have very similar ideas and what they want to wear, how they want to present themselves, or even cultural, cultural things that they're interested in. In a way that I did not feel like existed at all in that way in the 90s, it felt like the lines were so much more distinct. I feel like the through line that I'm capturing here is that if we think of the gatekeepers or the decision makers from the 90s or 2000s, a lot of those people had their own incentives. Yes, they're running a business, but it felt like there was a bit more taste oriented with that. There was truly more differentiation within those sectors, within those areas, regardless of how big they were. But now it does feel like the algorithms, because they perfected it so much, they are the new gatekeepers. So even the individual people can't necessarily make the same decision. So if you're looking that at in totality, yes, in the legacy media days, the people that were pulling the strings at the radio stations, the TV stations, the movie production studios, the, the early Internet companies, whatever it is, yes, they weren't making the kind of money that the people that control the algorithms are. But now, because of how much money that these companies that have actually been able to make have all created these same type of tools and optimize them in the same kind of way. And the scale has just created this sameness that we're talking about, I think
Tati Sirisano
it is fair to say that algorithms have sort of become the new gatekeepers. Because the other element of this that I think adds to it is that I don't know that people exercise the choice that they have as much because you can just have the algorithm serve you something instead. And also because it can be overwhelming, especially in music, to sift through how much is out there. You're Kind of more likely to rely on algorithms. So in that way, it's interesting to think about, like going back to my argument earlier, where in the past I said, even in the Tower records days, you could still go and sift through the record bin if you wanted to. It's like, even today, you could still go and comb the depths of Spotify if you want to. But a lot of people don't. Because the algorithms are the new gatekeepers.
Dan Runcy
Yeah. No, I would say so. Because if we think about this as like a content, like a spectrum in time. Yes. Going back to the 60s, when there literally are only three or eight channels or even one thing that's showing in your local theater, that is the definition of monoculture, especially from a mass broadcast perspective. That is the culture. Of course, there are subsections of that where different people would gather around campfires and sing their own songs or have stuff like that. Yes. Like that is our culture. But to level this conversation in terms of mass broadcast communication and media, by the time you get to 80s or 90s, I think there's a case to be made that, okay, in especially early 2000s, early Internet culture, before we really figured out how to monetize this whole thing, that was the height of fragmented culture in terms of how different things are. And then once we figured out how to make billions of dollars every month on these products, then things became more of the sameness. Can I throw a few things at you that we haven't talked about? Accents. The way that people speak to each other and having local accents. I think there has been a collapse, at least in the United States, in terms of regional accents, especially with younger generations, because of the sameness that exists in Internet culture in that type of way. And I think if we extend that to even just the local culture of what's popular in a particular area. When I was growing up, I grew up right outside of Hartford, Connecticut. I had cousins that lived in Orlando, Florida. When we met up during the summers when we were teenagers, they were introducing me to music that I hadn't heard of, vice versa. And part of that was just because what was happening, like, in their particular areas, and part of that was also relevant to the accents because the artists that they were listening to were speaking in a way that was very germane and local to them, and vice versa. And even how we spoke, how we referred to different things, like, oh, they come up to the northeast and they hear that we call Nike Air Force Ones uptowns. Oh, okay, that's interesting. They didn't call them that in the, you know, south Florida area. I mean, I know that you know Florida better than anyone, but, like, those are the types of things where I think about, like, accents particularly, and just how that aligns with the. What I call this cultural collapse in the Internet era.
Tati Sirisano
That's super interesting. I think that makes sense and sort of is anecdotally true. You're likely to imitate or adopt the intonations of the people that you follow online. And if all of that is converging to sameness, why wouldn't the way that we speak also converge to sameness and even things like our accents? I think that you can definitely tell how online someone is by how they talk. And so that's like, in its own, I feel like, is an indicator of what you're saying.
Dan Runcy
And I think with that, you see it in these other areas too, right? There's this whole dialogue now about how people have ChatGPT or Claude speak. You can see it in their deck presentations. That's the type of thing that we see. Or have you ever met someone where it's clear that English may not be their first language, but based on hearing them talk, you can get an idea to be like, oh, okay, I think you may have learned a lot of English from watching TV shows just based on the dialect intonation of how you're saying certain things, and not even just that you, like, watch tv, but you sound like a reality show on Bravo, just based on, like, how you're speaking right now.
Tati Sirisano
I mean, and you add to that how kids today, especially if you sort of came of age during the pandemic, were in many ways interacting and learning more from people online that they were watching than they maybe were from people locally in their hometown? Like, I think that example that you said of someone learning English by watching Bravo is sort of like people learning to socialize by watching Real Housewives or by watching Call Her Daddy. I think that definitely holds weight. It's interesting, like, the more that we talk about this, the more examples are coming to mind to me of other ways that things have sort of become flattened. Like phone design. All phones look the same. You think about how the color of the year, like, last year or the year before was beige. Just to say, like, you're making me think of a lot more things that sort of fit into this category the more that we talk about it.
Dan Runcy
Speaking of colors, did you see that data from a couple of years ago about how the car colors and the purchase patterns of car colors over the past 30 years and how that's shifted for the listeners. 20, 30 years ago, it was much more common to see large amounts of cars that were purchased in yellow, red, green, purple, orange, all the rainbow colors. Right. If you look at the past 10 years, so much of that is now converged into white, black and gray, Maybe a little bit of variety elsewhere. But those are the main car colors that you are seeing. And I think a similar version of that is logos. Most of these company logos got a lot more boring and a lot more flat. And it's because brand recognition and just being able to quickly see and identify things took precedence over having these unique aspects. And I think you saw it especially you go look back to the 90s, even the early 2000s, for any of these brands or these car companies or things like that. The logos looked a lot more unique and more characteristics. And now, if anything, they've become more monochromatic, monocultural, and a bit more standardized.
Tati Sirisano
So I think that where I'm getting to with this is that people are spreading their consumption across more things, but those things are increasingly looking alike. It feels like what you're saying is that there was a period of monoculture, and then things became more fragmented, and then they became monoculture again. You're starting to get me with that. But I think there's still more things that people are spreading their consumption around. It's just that they're not all different anymore. They're increasingly converging towards sameness.
Dan Runcy
Are there any areas that you feel differently about that particular thesis or thought that I have?
Tati Sirisano
Well, I think that this is happening sort of differently in different formats or in different types of entertainment. There's more fragmentation, at least of just like, listening, regardless of whether those things are the same or not. Yes, anyone can go on YouTube, but the distribution isn't quite as sort of like infinite as it is on music. So I think that's a factor, like how easy it is to create and distribute the thing. And the easier it is, the more fragmented that space is. But I also think there's something interesting happening with newness and synchronous activities, like going to a live concert, like something that is happening everyone's experiencing at the same time. Because when I do think about the spaces that monocultural moments tend to still happen in, I feel like they tend to be live events. And there's something to be said for, like, everyone experiencing something new at the same time. Whereas in most other formats, in all digital formats, not only are you experiencing things at different times, but new is no longer the focus of culture. It used to be what was new and hot was pop culture, whereas now newness just has less weight. Kids are listening to songs from the 90s. These things that you were just talking about, where you see this kind of sameness across age groups, those are the areas where we're seeing monoculture still prevail, at least in terms of my definition of having a collective consciousness.
Dan Runcy
So what's your take on live events and how you see that being differently?
Tati Sirisano
I guess because with live events, everyone is experiencing the same thing at the same time. And it's something that is sort of by definition new, that tends to drive more of like a mainstream moment than anything else. Because all digital formats are both experienced at different times and not revolving around newness.
Dan Runcy
That's interesting because I can make a case that live events and just in person gatherings are now the closest thing you have to true fragmented cultural moments. Because the experience can be so distinct. Whether it's the biggest concerts in the world or even the actual people that are at that show, they are actually experiencing something different than a lot of the other people that are just assuming the mass culture is right. So the mass culture may be okay, Are you going to a Taylor Swift show? Are you watching the live stream of a Taylor Swift show? Are you listening to this album? There are different degrees of engagement, but either way, you're involved with that experience. But let's say that you are going to the show for an artist that is doing a local show at Public Records or here, the Chapel in San Francisco or the Independent or the Troubadour or any of those types of venues, you're seeing other people that are, oh, this is part of a unique, distinct culture. And even someone that may host a business conference or an event or some other type of gathering, those feelings, like the closest thing today to what 10, 15 years ago felt like the Tumblr experience, the Black Planet experience, the AOL Instant messenger experience, where, okay, those feel like you're actually getting closer to a unique world, a unique area.
Tati Sirisano
That's the thing. I think there's like different definitions happening here because I think live is where increasingly mainstream moments come from. Like things that everyone's talking about. But if we're talking about sameness versus differentiation, I think you're right that there's more different experiences happening maybe in live than there are online. I feel like when where there is a mainstream thing that it feels like everyone is talking about, that feels similar to in the olden days, everyone had a water cooler moment. Those water cooler moments tend to revolve around live things today.
Dan Runcy
So this was fun. I think we brought up a bunch of points. There's other areas that we could go into, but I think I want to table that for another conversation topic for another day.
Tati Sirisano
But no, this has been fascinating and has really challenged my thinking on it. Yeah, I love this. We should do debates more often.
Dan Runcy
Well, Tati, appreciate you coming on. This is fun.
Tati Sirisano
Thanks, Dan.
Dan Runcy
And that is a wrap. Thank you to Tati Sirisano for joining me on this one. Always fun to debate these topics. Thank you to our audio and video producers G and Eric for everything that you do to help make travel possible. Thank you to Rwana on our team for helping to make trapital possible. But most importantly, thank you for listening. If there's one person you know that would really get a lot out of trapitol, really enjoy the show, send them a link. Word of mouth is still the best way to grow. And if you have a few minutes, leave a review, leave a comment that helps make sure that the algorithm does the right thing and trapitol reaches the right people. Thanks again. Talk to you next time.
Episode Title: Why Everything Feels the Same Now
Host: Dan Runcie
Guest: Tati Sirisano
Date: May 28, 2026
This episode features a debate between host Dan Runcie and guest Tati Sirisano exploring the concept of monoculture. They interrogate whether monoculture ever truly existed, how the proliferation of digital platforms and algorithms have shaped contemporary culture, and why, despite apparent infinite choice, so much of what we consume today looks, sounds, and feels the same. Central themes include the fragmentation of media, the rise of algorithmic gatekeepers, the persistence of “mainstream” moments, and how individuality and local culture have become flattened in the digital age.
| Time | Speaker | Quote | |---|---|---| | 02:53 | Tati | “There was much more sort of synchronicity where everyone tended to experience the same things at the same time.” | | 05:28 | Tati | “I think there is a difference between saying that we used to have a collective consciousness...and saying we used to consume all the same things and now do not.” | | 07:46 | Tati | “Taylor Swift’s smash success is in part because of fragmentation, not in spite of it...it ironically makes it easier for that hit to rise to the top.” | | 09:44 | Dan | “There are fewer but larger big stages than ever. And Taylor Swift is one of those people that has a stage.” | | 12:08 | Tati | “It feels like we are weirdly reaching this point...where it almost feels like things maybe can’t get any more fragmented and we’re moving back in the opposite direction.” | | 19:02 | Tati | “You would think that social media and the proliferation of the Internet would make for more diversity...but it does sort of feel like it’s done the opposite.” | | 20:21 | Dan | “We have more segmentation, but we have less differentiation.” | | 22:00 | Tati | “Algorithms have sort of become the new gatekeepers.” | | 24:59 | Tati | “You’re likely to imitate or adopt the intonations of the people that you follow online...why wouldn’t the way that we speak also converge to sameness...?” | | 27:54 | Tati | “People are spreading their consumption across more things, but those things are increasingly looking alike.” | | 31:42 | Tati | “Live is where increasingly mainstream moments come from...but if we’re talking about sameness versus differentiation...there’s more different experiences happening maybe in live than online.” |
“People are spreading their consumption across more things, but those things are increasingly looking alike.”
— Tati Sirisano (27:54)
This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in media, technology, and the forces shaping how we experience culture today.