Ellen DeGeneres’ Oscars selfie: was this the moment pop culture shattered into a billion pieces?

When DeGeneres posted her A-list snap at the 2014 Academy Awards, it made a splash. But it was probably the end of monoculture – and now we’re all alone in our TikTok bubbles Age: Once upon a time (2 March 2014, to be precise), at the Oscars, the actor Bradley Cooper, who was nominated for best supporting actor, took a selfie with the host, Ellen DeGeneres, and a whole load of A-listers … Remind me who featured. Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Lupita Nyong’o, Jennifer Lawrence. Ah yes, a stellar lineup! But, back to the question of age: so the Oscars selfie is 12 years old? Correct. And we’re talking about it now because … according to a recent essay in the Hollywood Reporter, this selfie represented the beginning of the end for monoculture. In farming? No, not in farming. Monoculture as in a shared popular culture, a cultural moment dominated by one single element. Everyone huddling around the TV to watch the Apollo 11 moon landing, or the wedding of Charles and Diana, or the finale of Friends – that sort of thing? Bingo, when everyone had fewer channels on TV. Though all of those examples pre-date the social media age, unlike the Oscars selfi