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From colonial town commons to shopping malls to Facebook, America keeps creating shared spaces, watching them get commercialized, and then mourning their loss. The cycle repeats every 80 years, and we're right on schedule for the next collapse.
Vaudeville performers built the first influencer marketing empire in the 1910s, turning stage presence into brand deals and cultural authority. When audiences turned on them in the 1920s, the entire system collapsed overnight — and the psychological patterns driving that crash are playing out again in today's creator economy.
Rome, Athens, and Revolutionary France all tore themselves apart arguing about what their founding really meant. The pattern is so consistent it might as well be a law of history — and America is right on schedule.
When Gutenberg's printing press democratized information in the 1400s, it didn't create enlightenment—it triggered religious wars, conspiracy theories, and social collapse that lasted until the 1600s. America's internet-fueled culture wars are following the exact same playbook.
Every generation rediscovers the same life advice and packages it as revolutionary wisdom. From Stoic emperors to medieval monks to modern productivity gurus, the core insights about human flourishing haven't changed in 2,500 years — but our amnesia about this fact keeps the self-help industry profitable.
Constantinople's chariot-racing fans turned into political death squads in 532 AD, leaving 30,000 dead in six days. The blueprint for how entertainment becomes tribal warfare hasn't changed — and neither have the warning signs.
From Plato banning poets to parents burning Beatles records, every attempt to suppress artistic expression has collapsed within a generation. The pattern is so consistent it's practically a law of human behavior.