There was a time, not long ago, when Americans — regardless of region, class, or politics — shared a common cultural foundation. From the Saturday morning cartoons children watched to the nightly news programs adults relied on, mainstream culture was both a mirror and a glue: it reflected our values while keeping us tethered to the same national experience. That era is over.

We have entered the Age of Alternative Culture, an era defined by fragmentation, algorithmic echo chambers, and cultural isolation masquerading as global connection.

The culprit is not a single villain but a confluence of forces, chief among them the rise of the Internet and the omnipresence of algorithmically curated content. Social media platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram don’t just reflect our preferences; they shape them, refining our tastes and beliefs into niche categories optimized for engagement. Every scroll reinforces what the algorithm thinks you want, narrowing your worldview under the guise of preference. (RELATED: Loneliness Is the New Oil)

We are becoming numbers on a screen in an illusion of mass connectivity, our eyes more valuable than our minds. The consequence is a culture atomized into digital micro-nations, where people live in parallel realities consuming different music, news, humor, and values. There is no longer a mainstream — there are now only streams, and each of us is drowning in our own. (RELATED: Why Gen Z Is Giving Up on Sex, Love, and Each Other)

This isn’t just a shift in entertainment or media. It’s a foundational change in how we form identity and community. The old model of regional culture is quickly dissolving. No longer anchored to geography or tradition, young people today derive culture from hyper-specific online communities: fandoms, meme subcultures, or identity-based categorizations that range from sexual orientations to aesthetic tribes like “cottagecore” or “dark academia.” A Gen Z teenager in Pennsylvania may have more in common with a TikTok friend in Brazil than with her own neighbors.

In the name of globalization, the Internet has erased our cultural map and replaced it with the promise of infinite connection, with the result of profound loneliness.

Although COVID didn’t create this fracturing, it supercharged it. Lockdown policies, which forced an entire generation into isolation, made the Internet not just a pastime but a lifeline. For young people, especially Gen Z, this meant their formative years were spent entirely online — and not just for school on Zoom. As churches, schools, and town squares were removed as an option for these children, the screen became their sanctuary. The real world shrank. The digital world expanded. And with it, our common culture evaporated.

What is left of a common American culture today? Sports, perhaps. Some major brands like Taylor Swift through her Eras Tour, or the 2023 release of films “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer,” pierced the collective culture enough to send masses to real-world events. But even these moments were meant for posting on social media, and they were consumed differently among audiences who debate and interpret in fragmented online subgroups.

The news media are no better. One person’s truth is another person’s “fake news,” and shared national narratives have been replaced by conflicting feeds and podcasts curated to reaffirm our personal biases.

The implications are more than cultural — they are political. James Madison, in “Federalist No. 10,” warned us against factions — groups of citizens “united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.” Today, we don’t just have factions — we have an entire society of factionalized individuals. And when there is no longer a shared moral language or cultural foundation, debate becomes impossible. Politics becomes tribal. Compromise becomes weakness.

Interestingly, the generational divide isn’t just partisan — it transcends party lines. Consider recent arguments on foreign policy about President Donald Trump’s military action against Iranian nuclear facilities. Many younger Americans, regardless of political affiliation, were more likely to oppose it. Older Americans were more comfortable supporting forceful intervention.

Compare this to the 1960s, when the youth’s motto was, “Don’t trust anyone over the age of 30.” While the Baby Boomers were the first to rally against the Vietnam War, in due time, they inevitably became the contemporary adults they used to oppose. Back then, their parents may have had their own preferences over listening to the Beatles or the Rolling Stones — but they knew too well who these popular bands were.

Today, could a modern mom or dad tell you who influencers like Emma Chamberlain, Mr. Beast, or Charli D’Amelio are? They may not even be able to name a Taylor Swift song beyond her more-than-a-decade-old “Shake It Off” or “Love Story.” And who is that Sabrina Carpenter girl, and what good movies has Disney even released in the past 10 years? (RELATED: Man’s Best Friend, or Women’s Worst Enemy: The Downfall of Sabrina Carpenter)

Kids have access to entire catalogues of earlier decades’ culture, from movies and TV shows to literature and music. The vastness of possibilities either leaves them paralyzed as they fall through a trapdoor of recommended content, or so desperately alone in their personal journey of artistic discovery and appreciation.

This raises the paradox of our time: If everything is alternative, is anything truly alternative? We live in an age where every subculture has a million followers and a merchandise line. Every niche has been monetized. The aesthetic of rebellion has been algorithmically repackaged and sold back to us. Every counterculture has a corporate sponsor. Authenticity itself is an endangered species.

The Age of Alternative Culture is not an age of freedom — it is an age of curated individuality, where our “unique” tastes are predicted by machines. We are caged by our own nonconformity as we walk in painful isolation, parallel with other people our age.

Where do we go from here? Perhaps the answer lies in rediscovering real-world communities, intergenerational dialogue, civic engagement, and shared traditions. Not to return to the past, as nostalgia may tempt us, but to build a new common culture. This should not be imposed from the top down but cultivated from the bottom up. Because if we don’t, we risk becoming a nation of strangers, living side by side but speaking in tongues, each convinced the other is living in a different world.

And maybe we are.

READ MORE from Julianna Frieman:

Gavin Newsom Wants To Be Donald Trump So Badly

The Cuomo Comeback Is Dead — And So Might Be the Old Democratic Party

Democrats Denounce Trump’s Iran Strike

Julianna Frieman is a writer based in North Carolina. She received her bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. She is pursuing her master’s degree in Communications (Digital Strategy) at the University of Florida. Her work has been published by the Daily Caller, The American Spectator, and The Federalist. Follow her on X at @juliannafrieman.