{"id":722575,"date":"2026-04-18T17:50:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T14:50:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/the-year-the-monoculture-died\/"},"modified":"2026-04-18T17:50:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T14:50:13","slug":"the-year-the-monoculture-died","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/the-year-the-monoculture-died\/","title":{"rendered":"The Year the Monoculture Died"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\tAt the 2014 Oscars, best supporting actor nominee Bradley Cooper took a selfie with host Ellen DeGeneres and a bunch of A-listers, among them Angelina Jolie, Julia Roberts, Brad Pitt, Meryl Streep, Lupita Nyong\u2019o and Jennifer Lawrence. DeGeneres\u2019 Twitter<\/a> account posted it immediately afterward, and it became the most retweeted post in the platform\u2019s history at the time.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe selfie was an instantly viral moment in a telecast that drew the Academy Awards\u2019 largest audience in 14 years \u2014 43.74 million people. The photo (for which Cooper used a phone made by Samsung, a major Oscars sponsor) became a dayslong news<\/a> cycle unto itself.<\/p>\n

\n\tNo one knew it at the time, but in retrospect the selfie moment feels like the last stand of a shared popular culture that no longer exists. Monoculture didn\u2019t die with Cooper\u2019s selfie, but that night may have been its last peak.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe idea of a monoculture isn\u2019t entirely a benevolent one, obviously \u2014\u00a0words like \u201cgatekeeping\u201d and \u201cdumbing down\u201d could be substituted for it. And nostalgia is by definition rose-colored. But in a fragmented world \u2014 politically, socially, algorithmically \u2014\u00a0where tech tools have the ability to make people question reality itself, and in an industry that is seeing one-time pillars of creativity reduced (at least potentially) to tiles on another company\u2019s landing page, the idea of a widely shared pop cultural language feels almost romantic.<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tKaley Cuoco poses with the cast of The Big Bang Theory<\/em> at the Hollywood Walk of Fame October 29, 2014 in Hollywood. The CBS series<\/a> ranked as the No. 1 show with 21.3 million viewers in its 2014-2015 season.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tMichael Bay takes a photo with fans in Miami for a special screening of Transformers: Age of Extinction<\/em>, the top grossing movie worldwide in 2014 with $1.1 billion, not adjusted for inflation.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tTo rewind a bit: At the time of the Oscar selfie in 2014, social media was ascendant, and both traditional and online media outlets were reaping the benefits of an ecosystem where a favored Facebook post could generate tens of thousands of clicks (the \u201cpivot to video\u201d that would end all that was still a year away). Virality often came in the form of BuzzFeed or Upworthy posts with \u201cWhat happ<\/a>ened next will blow your mind\u201d headlines, a style quickly copied all over the web. Live-tweeting sports (which were all on broadcast or cable TV), big news events or just an episode of American Idol<\/em> was a way to have a real-time conversation with a few dozen (or a few thousand) of your friends and followers.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt wasn\u2019t just the Oscars that were big that year, either. Broadcast and cable outlets were arguably at their peak in terms of reach, with more than 100 million households in the United States subscribing to a multi-channel provider. The 2014 Grammy Awards drew 28.5 million viewers, and the Golden Globes brought in almost 21 million. The Emmy Awards in August 2014 had 15.59 million viewers on NBC \u2014 down about 12 percent from 2013 but still a very healthy audience. Five other music awards shows that year brought in at least 10 million viewers.<\/p>\n

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