People have been saying the exact opposite- that we used to all have the same 20 TV shows but now with internet microgenres we don't have enough shared culture anymore.
If you think of the ravelry community as valid as an in person community this will be nicer I think.
Hmm, interesting counterpoint.
I think both things can be simultaneously true. There are a million sub-cultures that can now exist, that are no longer tied to a geographic location. This is both good and bad. Good, insofar as if you're in the middle of Ohio in a 2000 person town, and really-really into model trains or whatever, you can find an online community that shares this. But I also think it's bad insofar as we've lost some sense of culture or commonality with our (geographic) neighbors.
But to the homogenization point; I still think within a specific sub-culture (sewing circles), you can have global homogenization. The sewing circle might new be global, on facebook and tiktok, instead of 10,000 insular hamlets. Is this bad/good? I'm not sure. There's nothing from stopping you creating a local facebook group. And in theory, good ideas can spread rather than be confined to a specific geographic group. But I can't help feeling that some independent thought and ways of thinking are lost through this globalization.
Independent thought still exists and is expressed but the network effects of influencers and copycats outranks independent thought on a platform like tiktok that group ideas and people together. Independent thought only has a place under an existing topic or brand.
>we used to all have the same 20 TV shows but now with internet microgenres we don't have enough shared culture anymore.
It has its ups and downs. It does mean that it's harder to mesh with any given stranger out there (unless you watch Sports, pretty much the last bastion of cable monoculture). But it also means anyone who does mesh with you probably is very easy to form a strong bond with.
But if you never find that person, the world can feel depressingly small. Hence the retreat to online communities and all its benfits and downsides.