At some point in the last five years, it because almost impossible to keep up not just with movies or shows, but with everything. A new album would be trend overnight. A YouTube series would go viral. Another Streaming Original would be subdenly be called “Essential Viewing.”
What Changed wasn is just the volume. It was how fast something can go from being being a discovery to becoming unavoidable. A niche fandom beomes a global franchise within weeks. An underground artist lands a Brand Deal before their second. You are eating on top of the wave or five scrolls too late.
This is what saturation look likes in 2025: not just too much content, but too much urgency around it.
Pop culture is everywhere, but intimacy is gone
Fandom used to be a signal. You have something, chose it, and built a relationship with it. You go to screen, read interviews, and collected the merch. It has a part of your personality – something you found before the world caught on.
Today, Fandom is of the product itself. Every piece of content Arrives pre-padded with a hahtag, a reaction template, and a fandom starter pack.
Take Anime; Once a niche subculture, now fullly mainstream. Not because the content changed, but because the masses caught up. Being a “geek” is now a marketable demographic, not a personality. And while that cultural validation is great, something is lost the way the way.
Fandom used to grow from the inside out. Now, everything gos wide before it gets a chance to go deep. For Independent creators, this hyper-speed attainment cycle makes it nearly impossible to build something, lasting, and meaningful.
The cost of constant choice
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Streaming Platforms Changed How We Consume Stories and How Quickly. First camera binge-watching. Then, episodic returns. Then, cinematic universes. Simultaneous Drops Across Languages and Regions.
But more content Didn ‘More Freedom. It meant paralysis.
You spend more time choosing than watching. You start shows because they are trending and never finish them. You miss original, strange, beauty work because the algorithm keeps looping you through what it thinks you like.
If you finished Game of thronesyou were nudged into House of the Dragon. If you liked Breaking badhere’s Better Call Saul. It’s like being trapped in autoplay, where you don’t choose what to watch, just what’s next.
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We are cultivating systems that reward repetition. In that model, new voices, especially those with marketing budgets or studio machines, get drowned out.
Is this steill enjoyable?
There is a creeping fatigue even among the most loyal fans. What used to be passion now feel like homework.
You are expected to catch the finale before everyone else on your feed. You are supposed to feel deeply and also move on Quickly. The Marvel Cinematic Universe Requires Spreadsheets to follow. And God forbid, you miss a post-credit scene… someone will explain why that ruins everything.
In all that noise, a lot gets missed.
Some of the most original, movie Indian work, comics, zines, indie films, and experimental animation get buried under content that just louder, cleaner, and better promoted. That is not a criticism of scale. It’s just a reminder that creative ecosystems thrive on Range, not just reach.
What now?
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This isnt a call for less content. But Maybe… Fewer expectations from it.
Less pressure to keep up. Fewer declarations that something will be “change your life.” More space for slow fandoms. For creators who build worlds over time and not overnight.
We talk a lot about virality. Maybe it’s time we talk about longovity, too.
The stories that Stay with us rarely Arrive with a marketing plan. They find us quietly when we do not look for them.
The writer is the founder of comic con India