The Great Flattening: How Digital Overload Is Reshaping Culture

In his thought-provoking piece -- "The World Was Flat. Now It's Flattening" -- Ted Gioia unpacks a pressing issue of our time: the increasing homogeneity of culture in the digital age.

Once, the internet was hailed as a democratizing force, opening doors to niche voices and unique perspectives. But now, Gioia argues, we're seeing the opposite—an overwhelming flattening of culture where algorithms dictate our choices, and digital platforms churn out the same repetitive content. Music, film, literature, and even news have lost their sense of discovery, replaced by engagement-optimized, lowest-common-denominator entertainment.

Gioia calls this phenomenon "The Great Flattening," a world where the overabundance of content paradoxically leads to less diversity, not more. With AI-generated media and viral trends drowning out originality, creativity struggles to break through. The result? A cultural landscape where everything looks and sounds eerily the same.

But there’s hope. Gioia suggests that real innovation will come from those who resist this digital sameness—artists, thinkers, and entrepreneurs who prioritize human creativity over algorithmic predictability. The future of culture, he argues, depends on our willingness to seek out and support what is truly original.