World History
With the advent of Social Media and the mass influx of new media from far less restricted sources has greatly changed how and what I consume of media and culture. Specifically, a massive increase in production of art and culture, a divergent of once limited fan bases into divided specifics, and the increasing popularity of ‘niche’ beliefs have all been factors that have changed my media consumption. However, throughout this all, the talks I have with people at my table and in my clubs in person still feel the same as before. A major change that happened during the last five years to me is the divergence of gaming, television, literature, and anime subcultures. Looking back into the history of what qualified as ‘anime’ from 2005 to 2014, the time when I have been most into the genre of television, will show that in 2005, there were a core amount of ‘must-watch’ shows such as Black Butler, Hetalia, etc. that I watched and everyone knew about, however with the rapid increase in variety of supply, it has become more common for there to be ‘who?’ comments from fellow fans when referring to ‘Prussia’, ‘Alois Trancy’ or many other characters I once considered ‘core’ to the fan base. The same applied to video games. Everyone had played Call of Duty or had a League of Legends account if they were to call themselves a ‘gamer’ when I was in middle school. Now those two fan bases are very separate from each other. Other genres, such as Real-Time Strategy and the lesser known Casual market, have created separate niches from each other, myself firmly a devotee to the Real-Time Strategy sub-genre and the 4X game genre. Media in general, thanks to the advent of mass production of cultural media with Twitch, YouTube, Facebook, etc. allows for a mass influx of all kinds of media before unknown and now allows me to share my niche enjoyments with others much easier. Now, a search of any pairing from a book, movie, or television show will yield me endless results. Media is creating