All Together Now

I kind of agree with commenters who don't understand why Ada Calhoun needed to argue that mass culture is fine, that we're not in any danger (or close to the ideal of, depending on your point of view) of irrevocable cultural fragmentation. But I do think there's a difference between mass culture in general, and the kind of saturation bombing that a true phenomenon like Thriller or Harry Potter represents. The rapid evolution of social media makes it easier for everyone to know that everyone else is reading about some kid wizard (or listening to music made by a dude with magic feet). But it also means that more things compete for our attention. Every generation is going to have its truly mass cultural event, but unlike in the days when enough people were already watching Ed Sullivan so that the Beatles could rocket to fame through a common channel, every subsequent generation is going to have a lot more competing for its attention. Phenomena and fragmentation don't have to be incompatible.