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CULTURE

Tom Wainwright says American cultural dominance is splintering

Friday, June 19, 2026 · from 2 podcasts
The DailyThe Economist
  • Danish charts now feature nine local songs, reversing a global monoculture.
  • YouTube data shows most trending videos are only popular in one country.
  • Mobile gaming markets have zero overlap in top titles across nations.

American cultural exports are no longer the default soundtrack for the world.

Tom Wainwright, reporting for The Economist, notes that nine of Denmark’s top ten most streamed songs in 2025 were by Danish artists performing in Danish. In 2019, only four songs in the top 20 were local. Streaming platforms like Spotify amplify global megastars but also fuel a ‘long tail’ explosion of local music, filling charts across Europe, Latin America, and Asia with homegrown songs.

"A study of YouTube trending videos across 100 countries over three years found that three-quarters trended in only one country, and only four videos trended in every country, demonstrating that truly global hits are exceptionally rare even on universal platforms."

- Tom Wainwright, The Intelligence from The Economist

The retreat extends to film and television. Hollywood’s share of global streaming commissions is falling as Netflix and Amazon commission hyper-local series like Polish comedy ‘1670’ to reach broader, non-elite audiences abroad. The shift is structural. Mobile gaming markets now show zero overlap in top-ten titles across the five largest countries, with 34 distinct titles across those lists. Developers find it profitable to build specifically for regional tastes.

This regionalization is happening alongside a domestic revolt against legacy Hollywood franchises. Kyle Buchanan, on The Daily, argues Gen Z is tired of ‘hand-me-down’ IP like Star Wars. Digital-native directors like Kane Parsons, who turned YouTube lore into A24’s fastest-grossing release, are outperforming studio blockbusters by tapping into digital anxieties specific to their generation. The fear of missing out on the week-long digital conversation around a film drives repeat viewings and box office success.

"Hollywood’s traditional ladder has been kicked away. Talent now flows from Discord servers and YouTube comments sections directly to the multiplex."

- Kyle Buchanan, The Daily

America still controls the distribution pipes - the app stores and YouTube algorithms - and profits from them. But it no longer dictates the content. The deglobalization of fun signals a weakening of American soft power as the share of American content in global viewing, listening, and gaming declines.

#Media#Society#Big Tech
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Source Intelligence

- Deep dive into what was said in the episodes

The Daily
The Daily

A Gen Z Revolution at the Movies • Jun 16

  • Kyle Buchanan says Obsession has defied box office gravity, making $265 million globally off a $750,000 budget.
  • Kyle Buchanan says Backrooms grossed $80 million in its opening weekend, becoming the highest grossing A24 film.
  • Kyle Buchanan argues Obsession connected with Gen Z by grappling with the generation's mores about consent, relationships, and social anxiety.
  • Kyle Buchanan says Curry Barker, the 26-year-old writer-director of Obsession, got his start on YouTube and made the film independently.
  • Kyle Buchanan describes 'corn plating' as a phenomenon where internet discourse dissects minute details of a popular movie, extending its cultural lifespan.
  • Kyle Buchanan says Kane Parsons, the 20-year-old director of Backrooms, was 17 when A24 signed him and taught himself filmmaking via YouTube tutorials.
  • Kyle Buchanan notes Kane Parsons's original Backrooms found footage short has 80 million YouTube views.
  • Kyle Buchanan says Parsons was inspired by the creepypasta 'backrooms' meme that originated on 4chan.
  • Kyle Buchanan explains Parsons resisted Hollywood adaptation offers, fearing they'd lose the original internet material's essence.
  • Kyle Buchanan says Parsons considers his A24 film a supersized installment of his YouTube series, not a remake.
  • Kyle Buchanan argues Parsons's visual language, drawn from games like Portal, resonates with young audiences accustomed to first-person shooter perspectives.
  • Kyle Buchanan notes Parsons is vocal against generative AI, a stance reflected in Backrooms' theme of unnatural simulation.
  • Kyle Buchanan concludes these successes prove Gen Z wants theatrical events made by their generation, not franchise hand-me-downs like Star Wars.
  • Kyle Buchanan says executives at Toy Story 5's premiere were more interested in discussing Obsession and Backrooms than their own franchise film.
#Media#Social Media#Society
The Intelligence from The Economist
The Intelligence from The Economist

Local, an aesthetic: the deglobalisation of fun • Jun 16

  • Tom Wainwright notes that nine of Denmark's top ten most streamed songs in 2025 were by Danish artists performing in Danish, a sharp reversal from 2019 when only four songs in the top 20 were in Danish.
  • Wainwright argues that streaming platforms like Spotify create a paradox: they amplify global megastars like Taylor Swift while also enabling a 'long tail' explosion of local music, filling charts across Europe, Latin America, and Asia with homegrown songs.
  • Hollywood's share of global streaming commissions is falling as Netflix and Amazon commission hyper-local series like Polish comedy '1670' to reach broader, non-elite audiences in foreign markets, leveraging cheaper production costs and authentic local appeal.
  • A study of YouTube trending videos across 100 countries over three years found that three-quarters trended in only one country, and only four videos trended in every country, demonstrating that truly global hits are exceptionally rare even on universal platforms.
  • The shift to mobile gaming has diversified regional play; research on the top five mobile markets shows no single game appears in all five countries' top ten lists, with 34 distinct titles across those lists, enabling developers to target audiences like Latin Americans or Indians specifically.
  • Tom Wainwright states American soft power is weakening as the share of American content in global television viewing, music listening, and gaming play declines, though America still controls distribution pipes and profits through platforms like YouTube, Apple Music, and the major app stores.
Also from this episode: (8)

Politics (2)

  • Annie Crabel details that Ronald Reagan's 1980s policies of free markets and boosted defense spending widened inequality and the budget deficit but rebounded economic growth, and his nuclear treaties with Mikhail Gorbachev hastened the Soviet Union's collapse.
  • Bill Clinton's impeachment after lying about an affair with intern Monica Lewinsky marked a harsher political era, though The Economist's call for him to go was not fulfilled and he survived the trial.

Science (3)

  • Crabel notes the AIDS crisis beginning in 1981 was met with fear and misinformation; religious conservatives framed it as immoral, and Reagan only spoke out after his friend Rock Hudson's death, by which time tens of thousands had already died in America.
  • Matt Kaplan cites Claudio Lazari's research showing mosquitoes can learn to associate DEET with food via Pavlovian conditioning; in an experiment, 60% of conditioned mosquitoes flew toward DEET-coated hands for a blood meal.
  • Kaplan explains that conditioning could occur in the wild if DEET protection is weak from sweating or insufficient application, but ample DEET application remains the gold standard repellent.

Business (1)

  • The 1980s saw finance displace industry as America's dominant sector, coinciding with deindustrialization and outsourcing that hollowed out towns, fueling a middle-class backlash against globalization and richer inequality.

Startups (1)

  • Garage startups by Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, and Sergey Brin Larry Page in the 1970s-90s laid groundwork for the internet and tech boom, with Americans first realizing the web's business potential.

War (1)

  • The 9/11 attacks by 19 Al-Qaeda hijackers killed nearly 3,000 people; President George W. Bush declared a War on Terror, invading Afghanistan within a month and Iraq six months later based on unfounded WMD claims, leading to hundreds of thousands of Iraqi deaths and the rise of ISIS.
#Media#Society#Biology#History#War

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