Americans often say the 1960s marked the height of monoculture, but that moment was really the midpoint of a broader era. From the late 1940s through the 1980s, national life steadily synchronized. Early television united households around three major networks. The ‘60s delivered a shared political drama and common soundtrack. The ‘70s produced nationwide franchises and blockbuster films. Cable and malls defined the ‘80s and ‘90s. For half a century, Americans consumed the same media, shopped in similar stores, and lived inside a coherent, although narrow, cultural frame.

But before that era of sameness, America was a patchwork of distant local cultures. Each region had its own humor, customs, accents, rituals, and expectations. The monoculture didn’t appear out of nowhere; it was built on top of a former polyculture that had evolved naturally over generations. And that’s exactly what makes today’s landscape so strange. We’ve returned to polyculture, but now that polyculture is algorithmic, instantaneous, and globally connected. Instead of local traditions shaping identity, digital platforms create micro-cultures with their own dialects, norms, heroes, and villains — none tied to geography. (RELATED: Brain Rot and the Crisis of Digital Late Modernity)

Today, that old world is gone. Technology has enabled us to consume music with AirPods in, abandon brick-and-mortar businesses to shop online, and curate our own digital diet. And yet, a strange mismatch has taken place.

We exist in a kind of cultural purgatory. Our physical landscape remains standardized through the same chains, the same signage, and the same corporate minimalism. But online, people splinter into increasingly narrow tribes. Even branding decisions spark outrage. When Cracker Barrel removed the man from the chair in its logo to modernize its look, online commenters erupted. The logo became a stand-in for a larger anxiety: that familiar anchors are dissolving, replaced by flat, placeless design that feels rootless to people who already feel displaced in their home country. This was proof that beneath the slick minimalism of corporate America, people still yearn for something familiar, rooted, and human. (RELATED: Cracker Barrel’s New Logo Sparks Outrage — But Is It Really About ‘Woke’ Politics?)

The physical world is homogenized — every store looks the same, every logo redesigned into the same flat aesthetic — but people flee online because they crave the community they can’t find in the ruins of the old monoculture. (RELATED: Gen Z Isn’t Just Online — They’re Living in Parallel Realities)

And in the digital world, taste becomes the new tribe. You are what you eat; people identify themselves based on their media consumption habits. Spotify micro-genres, Twitch political streamers, fandom groups on Discord, niche aesthetics on TikTok, and online creators form the basis of identity. A teenager in Ohio may see themselves as part of the “HasanAbi community,” or the “Ben Shapiro crowd,” or the “Swiftie ecosystem” more than they identify with their own school or town.

Gen Z, growing up entirely with access to these algorithmic ecosystems, often finds belonging not in neighborhoods or churches but in tightly constructed digital identities. (RELATED: Charlie Kirk’s Assassination Exposes a Generation in Crisis)

A young adult on TikTok can go from beauty tutorials to political fury in seconds, firing off indignation about the newest “canceled” personality. The left hurls accusations of fascism; the right warns of creeping socialism. Different rhetoric, same impulse: tribal certainty rooted in shared tastes and shared enemies. That’s collectivism.

The best illustration of this comes from how major public debates unfold online. Take the Israel–Palestine conflict. Instead of one national conversation, Americans now absorb totally different moral universes depending on what their feed delivers. One user’s algorithm serves pro-Gaza content framed around combating a genocide; another receives a steady stream of posts about rising antisemitism and Israeli defense concerns. They aren’t just news sources — they become identity anchors. People don’t merely hold opinions; they announce them on their profiles, connect with others who share them, and treat dissent as a threat to group loyalty.

The same fragmentation appears in the transgender debate. Some feeds highlight stories of discrimination and emphasize affirmation; others endlessly circulate detransition stories or controversies about men in women’s sports. Two people can open TikTok at the same moment and be told by the algorithm that the other person’s worldview is not just wrong but dangerous. Digital identities solidify, and every video consumed is another brick in the wall that has become one’s worldview and source of self-formation. The conflict becomes existential rather than a civic one.

These tribes offer a sense of belonging, but they also flatten the individual into a symbol. Once taste hardens into identity, disagreement feels like betrayal. Argumentation becomes a threat, as does asking genuine questions to better understand different perspectives. Check your impulse. Do you ever pause and ask why someone who disagrees with you thinks what they think, or are you quick to strategize their defeat?

People stop asking why someone believes what they do and instead assume they’re merely an avatar of a group, or just another bee working on behalf of a broader hive-mind. Online, you’re not “Sam, who is confused about the conflict”; you’re assigned as “the Zionist,” “the woke trans activist,” “the TERF,” “the fascist,” or “the communist,” based on which posts you liked or who you follow.

That’s collectivism in its modern form. The Democrats who fearmonger with warnings of “fascism” and the Republicans who tell you to vanquish “socialism” are not looking out for your interest as an individual American. They are picking a target, freezing it, personalizing it, and polarizing it into a cultural enemy. Red or blue, an average person who is equally as influenced by today’s media ecosystem becomes your enemy. Meanwhile, the politicians, media elites, and others at the helm of controlling the institutions in need of reform avoid your aim as you fire at your neighbors instead.

It is a perfect inversion of responsibility; ordinary people absorb all the outrage, while institutions absorb none of the accountability.

This is the tension at the heart of modern America: our inherited value of individualism clashes with the rising pressure of collectivist thinking amplified online. Our culture encourages us to parcel people into categories — red vs. blue, conservative vs. progressive, woke vs. reactionary — while ignoring the one identity that truly matters: our shared humanity. Every individual has a story, a reason for their beliefs, and the capacity for change. Recognizing that is the only antidote to tribal radicalization and moral panic.

Even politicians sometimes model this recognition, although perhaps for optics and electoral concerns. Take President Donald Trump’s recent friendly exchange with New York mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani. Despite their ideological distance, the so-called “fascist” and self-described “socialist” shared a moment of humor and civility, proof that disagreement does not require enmity. It was a reminder that political identity online is far more rigid than political identity in real life, where two people who supposedly embody opposing “sides” can still interact as human beings. (RELATED: Gooder and Harder, New York)

Ordinary Americans can extend the same courtesy. Understanding and empathy are always choices, even when institutions and algorithms push outrage and moral certainty. It is okay to change your mind, or to admit that you don’t have all the answers. It is also just as acceptable to hold your stance and civilly disagree.

If America is to survive and thrive, we must reclaim the value of the individual against the tide of modern collectivism. That means refusing to reduce people to their taste, their politics, or their digital identity. That means refusing to define yourself by these same categories. You must be willing to walk in someone else’s shoes, ask why they believe what they do, and appreciate nuance without fear of losing ideological purity. You have the right to be wrong!

Gen Z, more attuned than any generation to online tribes, has a unique opportunity. Digital polyculture can produce not only division but also new forms of community — book clubs that cross continents, online support groups, art communities, collaborative spaces, and areas where you can find people existing in your own city who also hope to put their phones down. The same systems that fracture us can also help us build meaning, if we choose to use them that way.

The return of polyculture, though digital and fragmented, can be harnessed to create meaningful communities, offline and online, built on curiosity, respect, and shared human experience rather than fear and tribal conformity. Algorithms cannot stop this; they can only amplify division if we let them.

Monoculture is dead. Digital polyculture is inevitable. What remains in our control is how we navigate it — whether we allow ourselves to be swept into tribal hatred or whether we insist on seeing each other first as individuals, human beings who belong to the same nation, and the same world. If America is going to endure, we must see one another not as enemies manufactured by the media, but as fellow citizens sharing the same fragile and irreplaceable home. Only you can change your mind.

READ MORE from Julianna Frieman:

Artificial Afterlife

The Real Divide Isn’t Red v. Blue — It’s Male v. Female

Don’t Let X Become the Right’s TikTok

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