My father’s funeral was nearly empty. Rows of pews with too much air between them, with hardly any family and no friends.

The most painful pang came from knowing what he craved: the week before he died, he talked constantly about us fishing. At Newport Beach. Two lines in the water, together.

His funeral was when I learned that loneliness isn’t born from intentional solitude; it’s a chronic condition that shows up as symptoms like empty seats. We don’t treat loneliness like it’s killing us—but it has a body count: the last U.S. Surgeon General labeled it a public-health epidemic, warning that social isolation carries mortality risks commensurate to smoking 15 cigarettes a day. 

The institutions that once brought us together have eroded. Fewer than half of U.S. adults anchor daily life in religion. Trust in the federal government sits near historic lows. Further, membership in clubs and civic organizations has plummeted. Work hours have skyrocketed. Burnout is the default U.S. workforce experience—as is anxiety. We have fewer close friends, are delaying marriage, and having fewer children. When the institutions designed to hold us together hollow out, we don’t just lose belief—we lose each other. When belonging becomes optional, isolation becomes inevitable. 

This isn’t a culture war. This is what I call our "Connection Recession." And as we come together this weekend to watch the Oscars, we can see clearly that our cultural industries are part of the solution. 

Some may believe we have more hard-hitting issues to bother with. But our societal fragmentation stokes consequences far beyond our personal feelings. Social capital cannot be reduced to soft sentiments; it is economic and democratic infrastructure. Who you know is one of the strongest predictors of upward economic mobility. And opportunity does not distribute evenly: it travels through relationships; it compounds through proximity; it accelerates when we’re welcomed into rooms where decisions are made. When connection collapses, mobility stalls, and inequality hardens. 

Others may believe that the United States’ situation is a lost cause—that our current helplessness is unprecedented. It isn’t. Take 2008, when the Great Recession spread despair country-wide. The media, real estate, and construction sectors all contracted. Tech giants advanced with insufficient regard for humanity or the risk of breaking things. We were at war abroad, just emerged from a swine flu pandemic, and sliding into one of the worst economic collapses in modern history. It was natural—and comfortable—to feel powerless.

Then, when we could no longer look up to our governments or gods, we looked across to each other—and to culture. Despite the media industry’s challenges, that era gave rise to the largest cinematic franchise in history: the Marvel Universe. The aughts also marked the emergence of mid-budget horror as a reliable creative engine. And during this era, we witnessed the debut of a young filmmaker whose Bay Area story would eventually make him the most commercially successful Black director of all time: Ryan Coogler. 

Meanwhile, platforms like Instagram, Twitch, and Snap emerged, not only allowing brands to broadcast to the masses but also enabling users to build communities around photography, gaming, and intimacy. Further, social media exposed American audiences to cultures around the world, such as South Korea, which had been developing full creative ecosystems with consistent government support and fandoms to counter the risk-avoidant tactics of domestic incumbents. 

We turned to culture in that tough time because it’s how we connect. It’s how we signal values, rehearse trust, and share meaning at scale. And culture is the most underutilized tool we have to repair this Connection Recession. Look at how people actually gather today: not through town halls or church pews, but at an Infatuation List-sanctioned restaurant. In a running club. During Fashion Week. Around a mahjong table. These aren’t hobbies; they are modern rituals: accessible, repeatable, human.

Culture isn’t soft power—it’s missing architecture, and we fail to protect it because we fail to measure it. That is why I believe we need to measure our Cultural GDP, in addition to traditional GDP. Yes, consumer spending at box offices or at finals tournaments is important, but so is the value of access, promotional power, and dynamics that actually hold societies together. GDP measures what we produce; Cultural GDP measures whether we can still stand in the same room.

 Culture today is not only who we are, but what we love and where we gather—something many call “polyculture” today. 

In contractive phases, we retreat to what we know—demographics, family, sameness. That retreat is understandable. But increasingly, demographics alone are insufficient. 81% of young people now say they prefer to be defined by their passions and interests rather than demographic labels. According to a survey by Amazon, 64% of fans say their fandom is a defining part of who they are, and 70% say their fandom is part of their daily life. Interests—whether fitness, cooking, poetry, or play—have become new coordinates for sharing space. They recreate lost public spaces inside homes, games, holidays, and traditions.

Modern nations understand this intuitively. Singapore, for example, has become a global cultural and economic hub—despite its relative youth compared to neighboring nations. By inviting expats not just to live there, but to build together there through government investments, aggressive incorporation and talent incentives, and through a culturally vibrant and sustainable lifestyle, Singapore has proven that shared prosperity can bridge cultures faster than shared history. Geographic proximity invites us to redefine—and remind us—of our closeness. This is exactly what Bad Bunny did at the Super Bowl by affirming “America” as a slate of countries in one, unified continent—as opposed to just one nation.

We cannot algorithmize ourselves out of the loneliness epidemic. We cannot automate trust. We mistook independence for strength and forgot that strength was always shared. So the next era cannot be defined by faster systems alone, but by thicker, deeper connections—across who we are, what we love, and where we choose to build together.

My father didn’t ask for more time. He asked for more time together. That’s what we’re losing. And that’s what culture is trying—desperately—to give back before it’s too late.