Localization of culture

The Economist assures us that culture in general is becoming local culture rather than international culture, by which they mainly mean American culture which we’ve gotten used to assuming will be shared by all the rest of the world. Though I am always eager to question any survey stats, I am quite willing to believe The Economist in this case. I dare say it’s quite true that in 2019 only 5 songs in Denmark’s top 20 were Danish songs, whereas last year it was 18; that 96% of Brazil’s top 100 YouTube singers this June were local; and that last year there were no foreign tracks at all in Thailand’s top ten. I am willing to believe stuff like this because it seems to me that this is exactly what would be happening. (This of course is yet another example of confirmation bias; the exact counterpart of the myopia I was complaining about yesterday. See also the comments section there. We are none of us guiltless!) Once upon a time popular music was distributed by large corporations, many of…