Online culture is fragmenting: Why White Lotus spoilers are not flooding the internet

White Lotus is not the internet viral darling that shows like Tiger King or Game of Thrones (GoT) once were. Back in the GoT days, it was impossible to go online without having the latest episode spoiled. White Lotus, on the other hand, appears only in the occasional screencap, applicable to those who are not familiar with the show and have no intention of watching it. 

Yet the show is an undeniable success. Familiarised with the fragmentation driven by video streaming and increasingly personalised algorithms, viewers watch in isolation simply because they like it. They do not feel the need to post or theorise online as much as they used to. But buzz around the finale leaks into small talk at work or among friends once it has been revealed someone else has watched it.

Somehow, without a huge digital campaign or the army of meme generators expected of smash successes, White Lotus has become a cultural moment that is not a need-to-know, but rather an ‘in the know’. Driven by good writing and aspirational scenery (after all, you too could travel to Maui, Italy, or Thailand), the show has managed to generate a mainstream audience out of a fragmented one.

Consumers are oversaturated and underserved 

Attention saturation has been a problem for a while. Audience fragmentation is on the rise, both between the growing number of platforms, and within them, via their algorithms. It drives a problem of too much content, with too many platforms to access it on, and no ability to generate meaningful audience concentration. Neither flood seems set to abate. 

TikTok is (was?) able to offer respite, acting as the place for where new trends could take off. Yet each one would flash and burn quickly, creating a rapid cycle where the only constant was, TikTok itself. Despite the US ban’s postponement, the app is facing serious disruption – evidenced by the fact that it has not really delivered a big moment since ‘demure’ last year. Perhaps the TikTok fever has broken. 

There is no platform truly poised to take its place. It is also questionable whether one even could. Audiences are fragmenting across apps, with young men and women gathering in entirely separate online spaces, as we explored last week. 

Losing the common ground 

This decentralisation is causing problems for entertainment industries, which now struggle to generate big cultural moments. Gone are the days of GoT episodic hype, or the origin of pre-streaming stars like Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, or Adele. There is little space for stars, productions, or moments to emerge and take shape without being jostled out of the way by something nearly identical (and more personalised), and then immediately replaced by the next thing. Major music labels are leaning on old catalogue; the last true Box Office moment was the manufactured Barbie / Oppenheimer beef of 2023. 

Some skeptics lament that this means culture is dead. This is not, however, true. It has simply fractured into scenes, niches, and micro-niches – and this behaviour is often happening offline. 

What comes next? 

Think about it in terms of scarcity. After being locked inside during Covid, people want to be around their communities. Constantly awash in a flood of competing content, they want meaningful curation. Digital spaces are, ironically, isolating – so connection becomes key. Audiences are tired of their screentime, so they are responding by deleting apps (if only temporarily) and going outside. The way they discover entertainment and the way they think about and categorise it may have changed. However, the things they value about it have not. 

Culture is taking shape in underground events that do not broadcast online. It is emerging in viewing parties out of sync with the release cycle, hosted by community spaces or members clubs. And it is happening, once again, around the watercooler, with shared in-person enthusiasm for White Lotus. 

Driven by personalisation, the digital world has become so fragmented, it has separated the people who originally used it to talk to each other. Ironically, they are going offline to reconnect – which puts entertainment, once at the heart of culture and connection, at a crossroads. Entertainment companies / social platforms need to reconsider whether they are  here to compete with our lives and our connections, or to enhance them.