[wolframhempel]

I'm wondering if this overlooks areas where we experience much higher levels of deviation today. Take music, for example. When I grew up, I was basically limited to whatever was playing on the radio or MTV—there was only so much airtime for a small set of popular songs. The mainstream was much more mainstream. Today, I can listen to obscure Swedish power metal bands with fewer than 5,000 monthly listeners on Spotify without any difficulty.

The same goes for fashion. I have a picture of my mom and her friends where everyone looks like a miniature version of Madonna. Today, fashion seems far more individualistic.

Streaming has given us a vast spectrum of media to consume, and we now form tiny niche communities rather than all watching Jurassic Park together. There are still exceptions like Game of Thrones, The Avengers, or Squid Game, but they are less common.

One of my friends is into obscure K-pop culture that has virtually zero representation in our domestic media. Another is deeply interested in the military history of ancient Greece—good luck finding material on that when there were only two TV channels.

Maybe deviance hasn't disappeared—maybe it's just shifted elsewhere…?

[datameta]

I'd also argue the culture of "digital degeneracy" has permeated the internet and is no longer locked away in, say, the bastion of mid/late 2000s 4chan. What used to be violent NSFL liveleaks content is now easily accesible by anyone with a phone. Softcore content is completely widespread on "clean" apps like IG and Tiktok.

If we measure deviance only by the metrics that existed before social media, we will of course find what is expected.

[munificent]

Consuming niche stuff isn't really deviance in any meaningful sense.

There's no risk-taking there, no producing something new for the world, and very little personal actualization beyond getting to consume a thing you like.

[pixl97]

Maybe we're looking at this wrong. Maybe 'new' stuff just isn’t that interesting to people any more. I mean the amount of 'new' things out there are huge and we are constantly exposed to them lots of them. Then when you couple that with the massive amount of advertising that is everywhere on every surface and site, people start to brain adblock and focus on patterns they recognize.