When I was a kid, there were occasional TV shows that everyone watched. Every week The Irish Times – and most other newspapers (if we can still call them that) – publishes the details of forthcoming TV shows. You had to watch it, straight away, and love it: if you didn’t, you were dead inside and possibly homophobic. Yet, contradictorily, social media provided enough information about the show to save you the bother of watching it at all. But the massive production of popular culture increasingly resembles scrolling through social media.

Source: The Irish Times February 15, 2026 10:31 UTC