“ H i , E v e r y b o d y ! ”

This is one of the most famous catchphrases from the 90s animated classic TV series, The Simpsons, spoken by Springfield’s local medical quack, Dr. Nicholas Riviera, M.D.—also known as Dr. Nick. This line elicited a follow-up response from a group of other iconic characters in the cast: “Hi, Doctor Nick!” If you are a child of the 80s, 90s , possibly the early 2000s, you likely already knew this line. You also likely knew it was from The Simpsons. And you, like many of us, are currently lamenting that the series’s quality has drastically dropped over the past two decades, thanks, partially, to the shifting landscape of modern pop culture and comedy.

If that’s the case, you’re also more than likely disheartened, even dismayed, at the overall state of pop culture in general. This isn’t because we lack an abundance of quality films, TV shows, books, and music produced by talented artists, but perhaps because there are simply too many options to choose from. Perhaps too much of a good thing? And as this rising tide of data is under threat of becoming automated, taken out of human hands in favor of AI- generated images, texts, and videos, this deluge of mindless media to consume is only going to become more overwhelming.

Watching a new TV series, catching the latest film in cinemas, reading a new book, or enjoying a new album, all the wonderful tidbits of human creativity that make life worth living—now suddenly feel like work, or at best, imposing to even start. Maybe our primitive monkey brains weren’t designed to be connected to a hive mind, especially not one where all our worst instincts are enabled, allowed to run wild and consequence-free. Or, we weren’t built to handle a never-ending stream of information, news and content thrown our way— not without serious ramifications to our mental health.

How is anyone supposed to stay up-to-date with the twenty-five (or more) films in the MCU, the eighth reboot of The Batman franchise, the Kendrick & Drake Twitter war, and all the celebrity gossip thrown at us every second of every day, all delivered in a constant, inescapable stream of useless information, literally designed to be addictive? We are being conditioned by media, smartphones and the deceptively and deliberately habit-forming devices to keep us hooked, engaged, plugged in and wired—but to what end? Popular culture was once the glue that united us. Entire communities, friend groups and even national identities have been formed and strengthened over the shared experience of popular culture, film, television, art, music and literature. Even though the cast of characters, figures and icons have changed through the centuries, the impact is still the same. It’s hard to deny that the works of Plato, Aristotle, stories such as The Myth of Atlantis, El Dorado, The Count of Monte Cristo, Romeo and Juliet, Journey to the West, and writers such as Jules Verne, Mary Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe, F. Scott Fitzgerald, among others, were considered pop culture works and icons in their times and beyond. By its very nature, pop culture is always in constant flux. This is something we all know and expect. But some things remain staples of human creativity. Some things are so everlasting and timeless that they leave an impression on our collective soul, so that we cannot help but remember them. As a result, we end up forming a shared allegiance and understanding of some kind of universal truth through them. Perhaps we are more similar than different, with seemingly disparate people readily bonding over a good book, a piece of music, or a movie, without reservations. But what happens to that shared language when it becomes too much for one person to process, let alone follow or learn? How do you stay fluent in pop culture? In just this past year alone, there have been an estimated seven-thousand new shows across all major SVOD platforms. How can anyone consume that much content in a year, let alone in a lifetime? This doesn’t even account for all the older media we individually revisit from time to time—the comfort food version of pop culture, if you will.

While writing this essay, I am currently rewatching all four seasons of Battlestar Galactica on Prime Video, one of my favorite shows growing up. That totals to sixty forty-five-minute episodes. Of these, I watch, on average, one-and-a-half episodes every weeknight—with the exception of Fridays, reserved for new movies. Assuming I stay focused, and my poor attention span doesn’t lead me astray to something else—perhaps revisiting an old favorite, like Mindhunters again — it will likely take me another month at best to finish Battlestar Galactica. Add to this load the five books I now have in rotation, six movies I am looking forward to this year, and the classics I need to watch for the first time, (Has anyone seen Play Time?) then you see the compounding problem with how we consume mass media. Sure, I may be a rabid consumer of it, because, after all, that is my job, and that’s the industry I work in. But if this load is overwhelming for me, imagine the onslaught the average consumer faces every day. How are they supposed to keep abreast of the latest episode of The House of The Dragon, Severance, The Boys (or its spin o& that no one asked for, Gen V),the latest celebrity scandals, let alone the political decline in our news feeds? It truly does feel like Everything Everywhere All At Once.

Forbes predicts that by 2025, 90% of online traffic will be AI-generated and interacted with—liked, shared, commented on, and retweeted—by other AI bots. In this cruel new paradigm, how are we supposed to safely consume and navigate an increasingly hostile pop culture sphere that is slowly pushing out all human-driven creations? How are you supposed to relate to anyone, if you’re unsure whether they’re real or not?

How can you trust what you consume, if what you consume is designed, programmed, and curated for your bespoke taste by an algorithm that will only give you what you want to see, at the cost of everything else — limiting your taste. And worse still, perhaps even narrowing your worldview. This is the devastating consequence of being trapped in one’s own little carefully curated, digitally crafted media cage.

Will you know who Dr. Nick is, if you’ve never heard of The Simpsons, or the role the series played in giving a voice to the typical American family? How can we find common ground when that common ground is gone? If we can only communicate with what we know–and what we know is just a constant stream of hate, fear, anger, and rage—crafted by something utterly inhuman— then how are we going to communicate with each other going forward? What good is having a culture if it isn’t united in some way? After all, culture, by its nature, was a construct around which people could be united. But now that culture is tailor-made and fractured, the results are coming in, revealing a world increasingly detached from nuanced reality.

It’s no wonder, then, that some of us have turned back to analog media—VHS tapes, records, CDs, and even cassette tapes. Perhaps there is comfort in holding in our hands the product of human imagination, human touch as well as creativity in what we consume. There is something meaningful about knowing someone else made this media for us. Perhaps real objects, that tangible presence, is a reminder that someone else out there understands us, that someone else gets it, that we aren’t isolated in our media spheres. There is someone else on the other end of that little rectangular device we’ve all become attached to. Maybe, just maybe that person cares about us, or at least cares about who finds their object. !at person created this for the world to enjoy and rally around as a piece of culture. If we don’t have that, then what good is popular culture? What’s the point of art and media if they just become more victims of late-stage capitalism, pushing more alienating ads, AI- generated videos and deep fakes our way? What good is culture if it is weaponized to attack and spread fear? What good is it if our creations are perverted and twisted in such a way that it would make Joseph Goebbels blush?

This sounds bleak, and frankly, it is, at least for the present. But as stated before, culture, by its nature, is always in a state of flux. Nothing is forever. Icons will come and go, but leave their mark behind. The streaming apocalypse of 2022 and 2023 has shown no sign of stopping. Networks, streaming services and other corporate entities all responsible for this cultural fracturing are reaping what they’ve sown, and now services and apps are raising prices and bringing back commercial breaks. Others just delete media as though they never existed. And consumers are starting to take notice.

Disgruntled, they unsubscribe and start rummaging through the attic for old discs and tapes as though preparing for some media apocalypse. Social media apps are being changed, cracking down harder with censorship, or even being banned, and people are taking breaks from it in droves for the sake of their own sanity. Real life and unplugging is suddenly as cool and niche as collecting records. Everything old is new again. We may not know how to fix this situation, but at least we know something is wrong. Shared culture has been taken away and is under threat. Perhaps there will be a solution, but it has to start small, as all things tend to. As long as we have a way of learning who Dr. Nick is, then there’s some small consolation.

“Bye-bye, everybody!” - and remember, even in Ray Bradbury’s classic dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451, there was still a shred of hope. Those who loved physical print and literature took it upon themselves to memorize by heart the novel they chose, becoming physical storage devices to ensure that their book would survive. We will survive this. We are perhaps the last hope for the salvation and preservation of physical media. Perhaps the answer to this growing issue is us—the savior of pop culture is you, me, is all of us— working to ensure that future generations can enjoy The Simpsons among of course many other works of film and music and literature. If we love it, then we can save it.