Fifty People Control the Culture(honest-broker.com)

22 pointsby Khainevor 6 Monaten2 comments

https://www.honest-broker.com/p/fifty-people-control-the-culture

2 comments

Neywinyvor 6 Monaten

I guess it depends on how we define culture. Certainly every community, be they a discord server or a twitch chat, has its own micro culture. Memes, references, trends, acronyms or phrases, and symbolism come to mind. I don't doubt that Bezos's power over Amazon over twitch could get some emoji they like banned. But I don't think that's as active a control a culture as I think the article implies. Bezos isn't personally producing a twitch stream the way Broadway producers would. Sundar Pichai doesn't mandate that the casting for a YouTube video isn't what he wants. To say they control culture feels disingenuous to the creators.

Arguably you could say that in the days of the monarchy we only had 1 person, the king, controlling our culture. And I'm sure there's influence. But at least personally I've never heard anyone hold that viewpoint.

burnt-resistorvor 6 Monaten

"Culture" is misused in this context. It's really mindshare (influence) in the memetic landscape. Actual influencers rather than wannabes. The problem is they're "elected" and respected by a mob or by buying their soapbox, and so they're not particularly educated, wise, or conscientious and bring biases and agendas with them that might not be the most constructive.