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The Winter Olympics is happening right now. Is it just me, or do the Olympics feel like they are far less culturally relevant than they used to be?
To some extent I feel like all big cultural events are getting less relevant. Modern terminally online people are increasingly isolated from a shared culture and live in their own little bubbles. Of course random online niches can have some sort of culture, but traditional national or international massive cultural events which pretty much everyone is exposed to, are increasingly a thing of the past.
That being said, that process is of course far from finished and there are plenty of big relevant cultural events left and in the Netherlands that definitely includes the winter Olympics. At least if you correct for the general trend I mentioned above, I don't feel like it has decreased in significance over here at all. A quick check of the all-time medal table for speed skating at the Olympics will reveal why it is a big event in the Netherlands. Or well, the causality presumably runs the other way with speedskating always having been a massive sport in the Netherlands. Speed skating gets prominent coverage in the Netherlands outside of the Olympics as well and successful speed skaters are massive mainstream celebrities over here.
It's because we don't have broadcast TV in wide use anymore. You used to just turn it on and it was on. Now it's apps and logins and 2 factors and fees and app stores and BULLSHIT if you want to watch this stuff.
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