The algorithm does not care about quality, truth, or artistic merit. It cares about retention . Consequently, it has learned that the most retentive emotions are not joy or wonder, but outrage, anxiety, and lust.
This has led to the "TikTokification" of all media. News headlines are written like clickbait. Movie trailers spoil the third act in the first thirty seconds. Podcasts now feature "chapters" so you don't have to suffer through a slow introduction. We are training our brains to require a dopamine hit every 15 seconds, and the entertainment industry is happy to supply it. Perhaps the most significant shift is the collapse of linear attention. It is now rare to find a person simply watching a movie. They are watching a movie while scrolling Twitter, playing a mobile game, or ordering dinner. Popular media has become a "secondary activity." WifeCrazy.13.03.13.Cuckold.Creampie.Revenge.XXX...
That model is dead. Replacing it is the "binge drop." Streaming services release entire seasons at once, not to be kind to the viewer, but to maximize "engagement velocity." The goal is to collapse the time between starting a series and finishing it, because data shows that a user who finishes a season in one weekend is less likely to cancel their subscription than one who stretches it over a month. If the 20th century was about broadcasting—one message to many—the 21st century is about narrowcasting. Every swipe on TikTok, every "skip intro" button on Netflix, every pause on YouTube is a data point fed into a vast neural network. The algorithm does not care about quality, truth,
And in the infinite scroll of 2026, rebellion is the rarest form of entertainment of all. This has led to the "TikTokification" of all media