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Comment by closewith | Hacker News Reader

The cultural relevance of all kinds of American media has been declining as the U.S. is not cool or aspirational anymore.

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For some nations there is still a sort of paternal fixation with US influence but it does seem to be fading with time. Couldnt point to any one factor than maybe just an overall sort of boredom of it.

It's easy to say that because the whole idea of "movies" has been fundamentally linked to the USA for the last 60-70 years. So if nowadays there are a few other countries who also have "movies", you could say it's true, but it speaks more to the level of cultural dominance and soft power USA movies have held up to this point than anything.

They want to not care but they do. I’ll know when I stop seeing guys in Czech Republic talking about Idaho politics.

Can you comment further on this? As an American it's kind of hard to see that. Is this just kind of a temporary reaction to the Trump administration or a larger trend? What is taking its place? Are there more localized media pockets (e.g. is there a significant German-language Instagram influencer world)? Geographically which areas are you talking about?

People no longer look up to America like they did 40-50 years ago. It's been a slow decline, really starting I think in the early 2000s with GWB's "war on terror" and stupid invasion of Iraq, and the election of Trump accelerated it, and the re-election of Trump has really put the final nails in the coffin. Instead of a force for good that sometimes screwed up as America was formerly viewed, it's viewed as an empire in rapid decline with a toxic culture. It's not perceived quite as badly as Russia, but it's getting there.

That's not really about media though. While it does factor into the overall sentiment, a think a lot of people can enjoy America's cultural exports regardless of how they feel about the geopolitical side of things (certainly we can).

I'm just curious because, for better or worse, American movies, music, and TV still seem globally dominant from my POV and it'd be interesting to know if and how that is changing. There's kind of a huge moat, other countries haven't built out these global powerhouse media industries.

Another layer of the moat is how much that media and tech hegemony has entrenched English as the global language. Any culture based on a different language is going to have a really hard time getting beyond their borders.

When someone says that the relevance of American media is in decline, that implies that something else is becoming more relevant. There has to be something there beyond "America sucks now."

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