Culture at the Speed of Compute: The Rise of Micro Communities
To grow on social media you must understand this
Culture used to be slow and homogenous, but now it is fast and disparate.
In the past, TV shows were released once per week, movies were hyped for months before launch, and people used to read books much more often.
If you go to the gym today and see an old music video playing on the TV, you can feel the culture from that era and likely guess what decade it was from.
People sometimes say ‘the medium is the message’, and there is definitely some truth to this.
But it doesn’t explain the full story.
Why is it that the focal point for what people spoke about in previous decades was often the same thing?
Why did they all speak about the same movies that were a big hit, the same artists, and similar books?
To me, it’s obvious.
I’m going to explain to you the core reason, and how you can position yourself to benefit from the next era of this - because it’s important.
Ready?
Okay.
Culture now moves at the speed of compute.
More specifically, it moves at the speed with which humans can produce and process information.
The faster humans can process information, the faster the culture shifts around it.
Slow compute = slow, macro culture.
Fast compute = fast, micro culture.
Stop and think about this for a moment.
It makes perfect sense, right?
The evolution of social media is the perfect example of what I am talking about.
We have gone from Facebook social graphs where you see what your friends post, to recommendation algorithms where you see what the AI recommends to you from anyone, to TikTok brainrot reels where you see funny, short-form video content that hijacks your dopamine receptors to make you addicted to it.
Each evolution of social media has increased the speed with which humans are able to process information, and consequently reduced the attention span of the people using it.
Which means culture now forms around 100 word tweets and 10 second videos, not 300 page books.
Who wants to read a 300 page book when by the time it’s published the content is likely irrelevant?
The world now moves too fast for books.
And it kind of moves too fast for full length movies too.
Have you ever seen how Zoomers watch movies?
I have.
Watching a movie is a huge accomplishment for them.
They can’t watch a movie without also scrolling on their phone at the same time.
It feels like work to them.
Because their brains have been fried by short-form content.
Culture for them now moves at the speed of TikTok reels, YouTube shorts, and tweets.
Which means there is no ‘stickiness’ to culture anymore.
It’s a constantly moving target.
Blink and you will miss it.
If you’re a business owner, content creator, investor, or you just want to know how to benefit from this trend, the next section is for you.
I will also be explaining my personal strategy for getting attention on social media, including how I grew to over 28,000 followers on Twitter, because it is related to this.
