I expect that over the next 10 years, more and more niche cultures will arise and begin to sprout their own characteristics, with the measurable effect that cultural products will have to be targeted more narrowly. I expect that the most popular books, music, etc. of the late 2010s will sell fewer copies in the US than the most popular books, music, etc. of the Aughts, but that total consumption of media will go up substantially as a thousand niche bands, niche fiction markets, etc. become the norm. I expect that high schoolers in 2020 will spend less social time with their classmates and more time with the groups they met through the Internet.
I certainly have an impression of “woah there’s lots of subcultures” but I’m not sure how quantified that is. Would be interested in someone a) formalizing a methodology in advance about how to measure it, b) then going and measuring it
I’m 90% confident that the cinematic uncanny valley will be crossed in the next decade. The number applies to movies only, it doesn’t apply to humanoid robots (1%) and video game characters (5%).
The most obvious things to look at were Rogue One (I think a lot of people reported being creeped out by Tarkin and Leah? Although I don’t think I was)
I feel like the rate of subculture formation has actually gone down from what it used to be in the 00′s. Rather than people forming small visible tribes (e.g. furries), most get sucked into large-scale visible tribes (e.g. social justice) instead.
My most testable prediction (that the top movies/books/albums would make up a much lower fraction of overall revenue) was completely wrong across all media.
We can test if the most popular books & music of 2019 sold less copies than the most popular books & music of 2009 (I might or might not look into this later)
Thanks for following up on this!
Orthonormal’s comment on subcultures:
I certainly have an impression of “woah there’s lots of subcultures” but I’m not sure how quantified that is. Would be interested in someone a) formalizing a methodology in advance about how to measure it, b) then going and measuring it
Vladimir_Golovin on the uncanny valley:
The most obvious things to look at were Rogue One (I think a lot of people reported being creeped out by Tarkin and Leah? Although I don’t think I was)
I feel like the rate of subculture formation has actually gone down from what it used to be in the 00′s. Rather than people forming small visible tribes (e.g. furries), most get sucked into large-scale visible tribes (e.g. social justice) instead.
My most testable prediction (that the top movies/books/albums would make up a much lower fraction of overall revenue) was completely wrong across all media.
Gemini Man is an even more obvious crossing of the uncanny valley, I think.
De-aging is different from a fully CGI character.
We can test if the most popular books & music of 2019 sold less copies than the most popular books & music of 2009 (I might or might not look into this later)