Why the Pop Culture is Stagnating in the United States

Coming from Southern California, I grew up on Disney, frequently visiting the theme parks on a regular basis. As a family friendly brand, Disney provided a haven of entertainment for everybody to enjoy. Why then, has the brand collapsed in relevancy?

I've heard many criticisms, and really, I don't think any I've heard fully encompass the root of the issues that the entertainment industry has been facing, and really, it isn't just Disney - major studios that once produced culturally relevant blockbusters have flopped consistently - ask around what music folks are interested in and chances are that everybody is listening to something different, and even when it comes to video games, once great brands like Nintendo have been in decline and spending on them overall has been in decline.

I've heard many criticisms. Disney is a greedy corporation, Hollywood actors and actresses seem out of touch, superhero fatigue, the brands are too "woke" and yet at the same time not edgy enough, too many remakes and too much nostalgia baiting, things are too expensive, race or gender swapping, and so on.

The problem is that these studios and corporations capitalize on repression. As folks would age, they would increasingly be socially pressured to repress parts of themselves to fit into their middle class communities. So what these studios do is sell parts of people back to themselves that they have been subconsciously conditioned to repress away with enough plausible deniability to get away with it - that is what folks are paying for. This is why queer coding is especially used within Disney movies (nobody is going to tell me Timon and Pumbaa are not gay). The trick comes from subconscious signaling of forbidden repressed parts of the self people are expected to compartmentalize away when they grow up with enough plausible deniability to get away with it. That is the service folks are paying for with entertainment from companies like Disney - all with a cost - which keeps the economic engine running.

So that brings me to where we are at now. The reason that brands like Disney are failing is that on one hand, people are more accepting of themselves - so younger people no longer feel a need to pay for exploration of repressed parts of their themselves - and they are also no longer able to afford the paywalls or to enjoy entering the middle class anyways (one recent study abysmally showed only about 15% of millennials and gen z both own their home and are partnered), so they have found informal ways to. Younger creatives have formed their own communities like the furry fandom, or board game and discord gaming groups, outside of corporate controls. While older generations carry spending power, they are also not happy with content produced by young creatives, and young creatives are not happy with the nostalgia baiting where they do not feel the opportunity to define their own culture.

In either case, content from these conglomerates has felt increasingly out of touch. Nobody wants to hear pop culture propaganda lecturing them about their privilege from celebrity actors and multibillion dollar studios that systemically cover up rape and pedophilia. While ostensibly promoting inclusiveness and the ability for people to "be themselves," for large parts of these studios' audiences, they simply cannot afford to buy their own homes, facilitate long term stable relationships, or have their own children. Dubbed "Disney adults," the majority of those that attend Disney theme parks do not have children. If you cannot reasonably afford monogamous heterosexual relationships and family, then, can we really say that folks can "choose" who they want to be? Nobody wants these messages while these corporations rake in record profits and attention is misdirected away from young creatives in favor of messaging coming from massive studio conglomerates.

The decline of pop culture in the United States is a reflection of a top down aging population and social stagnation, where media is disseminated less to empower creatives to facilitate socialization and connection, and more to lecture the public to get back in line and accept their own demise.