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Comment by nonchalantsui | Hacker News Reader

I heavily disagree with this one. On first glance what you say feels true, but there are so many mega popular people now that you will never know of despite even being from the same country. People with dozens of millions of fans, selling out arenas doing multinational tours and you won’t know them at all.

But everyone knows Britney Spears, even if you were never in her target demographic. This sort of global fame now requires so much more to reach because of how many are really locked into hyper personalized online experiences. I used to be able to reference the latest big movie or show and people would know, now that’s mostly turned into an explanation that the movie or show even came out and exists.

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>But everyone knows Britney Spears, even if you were never in her target demographic.

You probably think this because you were a child or young adult at the height of her fame.

My parents, who were middle aged at the time, certainly don't know who Brittney Spears is. They may have heard of her, but they couldn't recognize her or name any of her songs.

I mean... Taylor swift is literally the biggest musician in history... right now...

There's still enormously mainstream culture. Even more enormous in the fat tail than before.

There's just also a shocking depth in the mid tail now too.

The problem with movies is that Hollywood killed itself and tech helped. Movies and TV just suck now, for the most part.

Music, fashion, and visual culture are still alive and well.

Michael Jackson was the biggest in history. Global megastar before the internet. Taylor Swift has a lot of sales but in terms of global significance and cultural impact there is no comparison. Not in the same league.

Taylor Swift has relatively niche popularity in India.

Chinese are blocked from accessing any western social media, and no access to YouTube, Netflix, Spotify, etc. Taylor Swift is popular there but the Chinese have their own version of the internet separate from ours.

> Global megastar before the internet.

Not just the Internet. Before cable and satellite TV, even. Similar to Muhammad Ali in that sense - a globally renowned icon, regardless of cultural or languge barriers. In the west, there is the idea of a rivalry between Michael Jackson and Prince, but globally, there was only one King of Pop.

Taylor Swift has mind-boggling levels of fandom in the Anglosphere (even if it is largely limited to women), but her music is pretty straightforward, there are other artists like her who would be considered interchangeable with her given enough publicity. But the full package of Michael Jackson was groundbreaking and inimitable: the musical production, the dance moves, the songwriting and the music videos.

I think Taylor Swift is actually a perfect example, it's quite common to hear people say "I don't know any song by her beyond shake it off".

I challenge anyone from the '80s not to know of a few songs by Madonna or Michael Jackson.

Taylor is huge with some fans and completely unknown to her not-fans and there seem to be a steel transition between the two states.

> I don't know any song by her beyond shake it off

This is unheard of for children to say this. If you mean adults, there were plenty of adults in the 80s that didn’t know Madonna songs, and even Michael Jackson

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